My Robot Bodyguard

A couple of months ago, I took one of our cars to the dealer for some repairs. They had to keep the car for a couple of days, so they gave me a loaner car, a $44K Buick LaCrosse.  The Buick LaCrosse is a mid-sized luxury sedan that “envelopes you in luxury”, according to General Motors. This is unlike my first General Motors product, The Chevette, which enveloped you in cheapness. (The slogan for The Chevette by the ad agency Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Dukakis & Bentsen was "It's not a car-It's a Chevette!")

 My loaner LaCrosse had the safety feature of  side view mirrors with blind spot detection. You’re driving along and the mirror blinks/beeps when there is a car, animal, side of the garage, Joe Biden, or whatever  is in your blind spot.

I’ve been thinking about that feature and that I need a blind spot detection for my own life.

My problem is this: I was raised in one of those families which believed that it was their duty and obligation to express their opinion, whether it was wanted or not. It didn't even have to make sense. It was our opinion and you needed to hear it for your own edification. We didn’t care about your “feelings” because you had some “problem” we needed to “point out” and if you didn’t “like it” that was “tough” because you are “stupid”.

So I  became an adult that said whatever popped into his mind, particularly if I thought it was funny. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. My wife has helped me stay out of big trouble, but it is a big job.  But I need more. I need B9.

B9 was the name of the robot in the 60’s television show “Lost In Space”. This is the plot of “Lost in Space”. A family of astronauts (Dad, Mom, Hot Teenage Blond Daughter, Semi-Hot Brunette Daughter,  Goofy Looking Kid Brother, Handsome Single Astronaut that probably wants to hook up with the Hot Teenage Blond Daughter, and a foppish stowaway named “Dr.” Smith, who always gave me the creeps) were in space and they were lost. That’s the show!

B9 hung around with the Goofy Looking Kid Brother named Will Robinson. He was Will’s friend. They would discuss a topic and if something vaguely human would come up B9 would say, “THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE”.  

When a monster or a space bad guy would come around, B9 would flail his robot arms around saying “WARNING-WARNING” or “DANGER WILL ROBINSON”.  I need that. Except I need mine to say “DANGER ALAN MANIS” because I probably wouldn’t pay attention if it told me “DANGER WILL ROBINSON”.

When my wife was pregnant with our son, we were trying to come up with names for the baby. We were one of those couples that decided not to learn gender the baby before birth.   So we came up with two names: one for a boy and one for a girl.

Well, the boy name we had picked out we had to discard for various reasons. The girl name was “Mary Rebecca”. I told the people at work about the name and got several negative responses. So I asked my wife if we could re-think the girl’s name. This is when I needed B9 to say “WARNING-WARNING”.  Mary was my mother in law's name and at that time she was in the hospital with a fairly serious condition.

I asked about the name “Victoria”. (DANGER ALAN MANIS) I mentioned this girl I knew in college in Louisiana that I thought was the bee’s knees and her name was Victoria and we could call the baby “Tori” or “Vickie” that was my, um, friend’s nickname. (DANGER-DANGER).  In all honesty, this young lady was never a girlfriend, but that's not because I didn't pray about it.  Nobody had ever told me that it might not be a good idea to name your daughter after a girl you lusted after.

My wife said this and I’m highlighting the words as she did when she spoke them to me:

"WE are NOT going to name MY BABY after some girl YOU had the HOTS for."

Needless to say, the girl’s name remained “Mary Rebecca”.