I’ve been carrying around this plastic, electronic egg in my pocket for a couple of weeks now. Occasionally it beeps and complains. Sometimes it emits a series of hip-hip-hooray-sounding electronic riffs. I’m hooked.
My live, human children, who are unlikely to gain an additional younger human sibling, are now directing their jealousy at the plastic, electronic egg. “Can I play with Blarz?” Paolo asked me.
“Sure,” I told him, “but please don’t turn the light off, or give him a time-out, because it makes him really sad.”
“Oh, okay,” he responded. Minutes later he was fidgeting with the buttons. From another room, I heard him ask Vigil, “How do you turn the light off?”
“Oh, it’s easy,” Vigil replied. “You just press the left button until the little lamp is on and then you press the middle button, and then you choose ‘off’ and the light goes off.” Paolo fussed with this for a moment more until I could get into the room and confiscate the plastic electronic egg.
Council has already been doing her best to make Blarz as unhappy as possible. When she gets her hands on him—promising to yes, play a game with him (choice: imitating his dance moves, or helping him run hurdles at an increasingly fast pace)—without fail, she opts to put him in a time-out because, she claims, he did not eat the food she tried to give him.
When you try to feed Blarz a meal, and he is already stuffed overly-full, he will not eat, although he does put on pounds when you overfeed him. When you try to administer medicine for Blarz and he is not sick, he will not take the medicine. This is actually a pretty self-regulating little critter.
For Council, though, it has been pretty disappointing to try to feed him slice after slice of pizza and to discover that he actually has a limit. Thus the time-out. And after that, a really sulky, plastic, electronic egg.
“You can’t play with Blarz anymore,” I told her. “You keep putting him in time-outs.”
“I know, but he won’t eat,” she protested.
“He won’t eat because you already fed him so that he is stuffed and fat,” I responded. I couldn’t believe I was hearing myself say these words about an e-toy.
“Where’s Blarz?” Paolo asked after getting home from school.
“In a safe and quiet place,” I told him. “He is not to be disturbed.”
Last night, I was in a meeting. Blarz was in my pocket, and from time to time, gave out a little electronic yelp. I knew that he was not hungry, but lonely and wanting to play, craving attention. After the meeting ended, I checked on his status. Yes, he was totally full, but also totally miserable, and getting sick, and lying in his own filth. I was in the midst of a conversation with River and didn’t want to be rude, but I had to address this with a few button-pushes. I cleaned up Blarz, I gave him medicine, and then put him back in my pocket, thinking I would try to run some hurdles with him after my conversation was done. That always cheers him up.
A few minutes later, Blarz emitted another cacophony of little blips and bleeps. I pulled him out of my pocket to discover that he had put himself to bed. “Oh no!” I said to River. “He went to bed before I could make him happy!” River just looked at me, disbelieving, and then honestly just cracked up laughing. I walked away, pouting. On one hand, I think he finds this sort of cute, and on the other, it’s really quite disturbing.