Lexi slammed the door behind her and tossed her backpack on the entryway floor in frustration. She stood still for a moment, breathing hard and trying to gather herself. Why did she let that brainless twit get to her like that? And how did she let it happen? That nitwit probably didn't have three functioning brain cells on a good day. And she can just stroll up waving those big tits of hers around like a pair of semaphore flags and any boy within half a mile suddenly can't even put a fork to his lips. Boys were so ruled by their dicks!
Lexi stared at her feet fuming inchoately a few seconds longer before the clack-clack of the pet door at the back of the house brought her back to her present surroundings. Click, click, click and Farley came trotting up, wagging his tail and looking up at her.
Lexi squatted and let the black-and-white terrier lick at her face as he propped himself up with both paws on one of her knees.
"Farley, you always know how to make a girl feel wanted," she said, scratching him behind his ears. "I wish I could say as much about more of the primates I know," she added, reaching for her backpack and standing.
Farley retreated a few steps, tail wagging furiously and still gazing up at her, before turning and heading toward the kitchen. As he turned a corner, he looked back at her hopefully.
"Yeah, yeah, I know the price of your affection. Don't worry, you'll get your yumyum. But it's early still--later."
Lexi went the opposite direction, down a hallway and into a bedroom. Her bedroom, once upon a time. Well, still hers, sorta, though a little more than a year of living on campus and most of a summer spent abroad made it feel strangely unfamiliar.
She tossed her backpack theatrically onto the bed in a long arc, albeit minus the vehemence of her dramatic entrance a few minutes earlier. She sat heavily on the end of the bed and collapsed backwards with a sigh, arms spread wide.
Why, oh why, she thought, am I so hung up on this guy? It wasn't like he was her usual type. Hell, did she even have a usual type? She'd only had two boyfriends in high school, and they were both kind of casual relationships, nothing hot and heavy. She'd had her fling with a few guys since being in college and that was fun and all--especially the sex--but nothing she ever got worked up about. If it happened, it happened, and if it didn't, it didn't. Life went on. So what was it about Ryan that had her in such a tizzy? Yeah, he was pretty cute and had an athletic build. Maybe he even wasn't a total numskull, like most of the other guys who thrust themselves upon her. But all of that still didn't add up. She just couldn't explain it, and she didn't like it when she couldn't explain things.
And it certainly didn't help that airheaded Nancy Nobrain (that was what her best friend Julie had called her, and she just couldn't stop thinking of her as that, although her real last name was Novain) was clearly stalking Ryan, too. And Ms. Nobrain had some obvious assets that Lexi was going to have a hard time competing with.
Well, whatever the case, life, and school, and homework weren't going to stop, so she had better stop moping around. She heaved herself up, grabbed the backpack, and unzipped its main compartment. She removed a black Greek sailor's hat, a scarf, a tablet computer, and a paperback book. She knew having that last item in her possession would make her seem an oddball to anyone who didn't know her (and who knows, maybe to those that did know her, too!), but there was just something so sensuous about actually holding an organic, physical object in your hands when you read! You could feel it had a weight that corresponded to its content and you could see yourself making your way through the story, millimeter by millimeter. It was so analog, but it was so real! Heck, even reading on a tablet made her a little bit of Luddite in the eyes of a lot of her acquaintances. Just about everyone these days would just plop their phone down on the nearest surface and set it to project a holopage when they wanted to read. And, if you could afford it, using AR contacts was the cutting edge way to interface digitally. But really, it's so creepy to see someone just kind of staring off into space for minutes at a time. And at least with a tablet, you can actually hold it in your hands.
Click, click, click, and there was Farley, gazing hopefully at her through the doorway.
"Ok, ok, I get the message! Mommy and daddy aren't here to take care of you for a while, are they? And that's my job now. I get it."
Lexi jumped off the bed and strode past Farley down the hallway.
"Let's see what we can dig up, kiddo."
Farley dashed past her into the kitchen once it became apparent that was where she was headed. He disappeared around the corner with a scraping of claws on tile, but then immediately let out a distressed yelp and started barking furiously.
"Hey, what's up, kiddo?" Lexi asked, hurrying into the kitchen.
Farley stood a few feet back from a black, round device, roughly two feet in diameter with a domed top about 6 inches high. It whirred and rotated a few degrees back and forth.
"Aw, Farley, c'mon, you know what that is! That's just Jeeves. No need to make all that racket! You've had all these months to get used to him. It can't be that big a deal by now!"
Lexi stooped down and scooped up Farley, who still let out a distrustful yip or two as she carried him across the kitchen to the pantry. The black machine spun around to inspect the retreating pair, and, apparently convinced that the commotion was concluded, scooted forward and around the corner out of the kitchen.
Lexi tucked Farley under one arm as she reached the pantry, opened the door, and grabbed a can from the shelf.
"I know, I think it's kinda creepy, too," she whispered conspiratorially to the dog. "But mom says you get used to it after a while. Besides which, she claims she hasn't done a lick of housework since they got it."
She set the dog on the floor, popped the lid on the can, and grabbed a fork from among the small pile of dirty dishes in the sink.
"So, unless you learn how to vacuum, dust, tidy closets, and keep track of your own dog food, I'm afraid you're going to have to put up with it."
Lexi walked over to Farley's feeding station and scraped the food out of the can into his dish. The dog immediately began to gobble down the food, snorting with delight.
"You should be thankful that thing can't actually feed you," Lexi continued. "Once it can, mom and dad won't need me to babysit you next time they go on a month-long holiday."
With the dog single-mindedly devouring its dinner, Lexi turned with a sigh to the sink. "Well, mom obviously exaggerated about one thing: it clearly doesn't do dishes."
She began loading the dishes from the previous night's dinner and the morning's breakfast into the dishwasher. It was already quite full of clearly still-dirty dishes. Apparently, her parents hadn't remembered to run it before they left. When she pushed the dishwasher door closed, to her surprise a series of lights flashed on the front panel and Lexi could hear water being pumped into the unit. Motors began to hum. She looked for a way to turn it off, but whichever buttons she pushed, they had no effect.
"Damn thing's haunted," she exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air and stepping back.
Farley, who had by now licked his bowl clean, trotted over and looked alternately at Lexi and the dishwasher.
"I'll tell you what," Lexi said to the dog as she removed a glass from a cupboard and filled it with sparkling water from the nook in the refrigerator door. "Let's see if we can have some fun with Jeeves. Here, come here."
Lexi pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sat, patting her lap. Farley trotted over and jumped up.
"Yo, Jeeves!" Lexi called in a loud voice. "We require your services."
A few seconds later the little black machine rolled into the kitchen.
"Yo, Jeeves," she said in a more normal tone, "calculate Pi to the last digit." She looked triumphantly down at the dog, who growled softly at the machine.
"I'm sorry, m'lady," the machine replied in a refined British accent. "I am not programmed with higher mathematical functions."
"Well that sucks!" she said, looking down at the dog in her lap."And I thought these things were supposed to be smart.
"Yo, Jeeves," she said, addressing the small machine again, "how much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
