Artificial Intelligence (excerpts)

...these excerpts from a piece I've written entitled "We take Artificial Intelligence."

When Roger got really weird, they gave him a shot of Artificial Intelligence. That made a big difference in his life. After the shot, he began having conversations with appliances, cutlery and almost anything plastic.

I mean, he climbed into the refrigerator and sat there for an hour in the dark, talking, talking! He says the refrigerator had interesting things to say: it deliberately spilled pickle juice, hated the smell of leftover turkey, complained how hard it is to work in the dark,and so on.Complain, complain, complain!
Refrigerators are all the same!If they aren't dogging it with a bad coil, they're cracking molded plastic that can't be repaired or replaced. They definitely have an attitude.

But if AI makes Roger talk to refrigerators and other low-class machines, that's okay with me. It's a small price to pay for the blessing Artificial Intelligence has been to us.

Problem was, we were bored with each other after two months of marriage. I'd taken to eating raw meat and gnawing on knuckle bones, and now and then I'd set my hair on fire.Roger began going to work wearing only one shoe. After that he cut all the buttons off his clothes and had to hold things closed with safety pins. The marriage counselor sensed something was wrong and talked us into signing up for shots of Artificial Intelligence....

I don't recommend AI for everyone. It can turn you very strange. The Berwins down the street took it. Their clothes used to knock you out. Cashmeres,silks, hand-painted ties, designer this and designer that. Now he only wears clothes he makes from skins of road kills. His poor wife Verna won't wear anything but tree bark....

Roger's main project now is crossbreeding musical instruments. There has already been a start made on this. He says look at the doublebell euphonium: they crossed a tuba with a trombone to make something that sounds like a cello and could be a urinal. So he figures it might pay to cross and oboe with a saxaphone to make a bozophone. Or mix and match bassoons, clarinets and tubas to produce a new class of instruments called "breakwinds." Whatever. He says his crossbreeds will produce a new wave of mutant music that will leave hip-hop in the dust.