When your 91-year-old father decides it's time to unfriend Alexa

She does everything! Except put up with my father

Bill Ervolino
NorthJersey

You’re probably thinking that the last person I wanted to endure a heat wave with last week was my 91-year-old father.

An Amazon Echo Dot.

And you’re right!

But, I drove out to Long Island last weekend, anyway, leaving the oppressive heat of the Garden State for the steaminess of the Isle of Long and the unrelenting crankiness of dear old Dad.

I keep an apartment on the ground level of his house. He lives upstairs with his aide, Tatanya, and his new adversary, Alexa.

I hadn’t seen my father for a couple of weeks — not since the day after Father’s Day, when my brother Don and his wife, Joyce, gave Dad his first (and, presumably, last) Amazon Echo, complete with the miraculous Alexa.

No comprendo

Dad made a fuss over the gift, but didn’t seem to grasp what it was.

“I’m sure you’re going to love it,” I assured him, during our car ride home from my brother’s house. “Alexa can do whatever you want her to: answer questions, play music, give you baseball scores, shovel the driveway, boil sauerkraut…”

I tried explaining that Alexa was a “cloud-based interactive service,” but that didn’t make a dent.

“Just tell me how it works,” he said.

Oh. Uh. Well…

(Don’t you hate when people ask you dumb questions that you don’t know how to answer?)

“I have no idea,” I finally admitted, humbly, as I turned onto the Southern State Parkway. “To be honest with you, I don’t even know how the radio works.”

Old yeller

The next day, as we set it up — which doesn’t require much effort — Dad was in a crummy mood, yelling at me, yelling at Tatanya and, of course, yelling at Alexa.

Amazon's Alexa can respond to a variety of voice commands.

First, he asked her what the time and the temperature were and she told him.

So far, so good.

But it was all downhill from there.

Within four hours, he was cursing at her. Then, he was cursing at me.

“I asked her how many Mickey Rooney had and she couldn’t answer the question,” he yelled.

He had neglected to include the word “wives.”

When I attempted to correct him, he yelled at me. And when Tatanya attempted to defend me, he yelled at her.

Then: “Alexa, you’re an idiot!”

I returned to New Jersey on Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night, no one was talking to Dad, including Alexa.

No longer speaking

My brother Don texted: “Alexa isn’t answering Dad’s questions, anymore. She’s only talking to Tatanya.”

“Are you kidding me?” I texted back.

You know you’re a grouch when your robots won’t even talk to you.

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“He yells and mumbles too much,” Don wrote. “And doesn’t ask complete questions.”

I returned to Long Island on June 30, and even though it was cooler in Babylon than it had been in Bergen County, it was still way too hot.

By the following day, Dad had decided that he needed a new air conditioner.

Is it hot in here...?

“This one is too old,” he groaned. “Can you take me to the appliance joint? The heat is killing me.”

This was a marked difference from 10 years ago when he and my mother were both on blood thinners and always freezing.

I came to visit them one Sunday and it was well over 90 degrees in the house.

“Don’t you want to turn on the air conditioner?” I asked, as I melted into their living room sofa.

My mother couldn’t believe my question.

“Air-conditioner?” she asked. “With this breeze?”

Dad and I went to the appliance store on Monday afternoon and before I could stop him, he began wandering around looking for the salesman he’d talked to the phone.

The store was crowded and Dad was going up to everyone and yelling “Tom? Tom? Tom?”

Oy.

Negotiations

I finally grabbed Dad by the arm and told him to behave himself. We eventually found Tom, who was waiting on another couple.

Columnist Bill Ervolino

“So, here’s what I want…” Dad began.

“He’s with two other customers!” I yelled.

When Tom was able to wait on us, he said the soonest he could get someone to the house was Thursday, and that would be to measure the existing unit and see what condition the sleeve was in.

Dad shook his head and said, “I know if I give you a little something, you can get someone there today. So…how much do you want?”

Tom shook his head and said, “We don’t do that.”

I shook my head, walked over to Aisle 3 and locked myself in a refrigerator.

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When I returned, Dad and Tom were still discussing options.

“Dad, why don’t we wait until the guy comes to measure,” I suggested. “We can come back, see what models they have…”

Dad said he needed one that wasn’t too complicated.

Tom whispered to me, “They’re pretty simple for old-timers nowadays. Does he have Alexa?”

“Yes,” I whispered back, “but they’re not speaking.”