I’ve been having the strangest dreams lately. I had one the other night where Chet Huntley visited me to have a look at the book I’m writing. Some of you older folks might remember the Huntley, Brinkley Report (Good night, Chet- Good night, David) which was one of the premier news stations on network TV for years. It competed with Walter Chronkite, another news caster we trusted. Anyway, Chet wasn’t wearing his suit. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts. When he asked me for the manuscript I was working on, I couldn’t get into my computer.

“No problem,” I said, “I have a paper copy.”

I proceeded to pull it out of a folder. A wind suddenly hit and papers went flying all over the place.  What a mess! Someone famous finally wants to read you and you can’t get into your computer, and the hard copy gets blown away.

Well, the dream I had last night put this one on the wall of shame for pretending to be weird. One of my friends is into robots. He loves them and tries to build them out of cast-away parts he’s found at the dump. In my dream, he invited me over for dinner and a drink. I’m always in for free food and a free drink, so I accepted.

When I arrived, a robot answered the door. She was very well-proportioned and pretty as well as polite when she invited me in.

“Welcome,” my friend said, “This is Missy, and she will be serving us this evening.”

I picked my jaw up off the floor. How did he??? And from junk!

We moseyed out to his deck in back. Usually, it was a mess, but what I saw was neat and tidy with fresh paint. The yard, which usually was also a mess with grass not mowed, weeds taking over the flower beds, etc., was professionally manicured.

“Missy did this,” he explained. “She takes care of me,” he said as we took seats that overlooked the flower garden.

Missy served each of us a drink, mixed to perfection. She left a tray with treats on the table next to us. I was impressed and took one of the crackers with herbal infused cream cheese and salami on it. Love salami and cream cheese!

“Thank you, Missy,” said my friend, as if she was a person. “Missy does everything for me.”

I was aghast. “She cleans your pipes, too?”

“Yes. She is also my friend and confidant.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It almost made me lose my lunch.

“Robots can do anything,” he said. “They do factory work, clean up the streets, drive vehicles, do medical operations, cook, do dishes, clean house, everything.” He smiled at me as if he had found Nirvana.

“What’s left for you to do?” I asked wondering if pretty soon he wasn’t going to see a huge gain in weight and an even larger drop in initiative to actually do anything. I pictured his deck looking like the scene in that movie Wall-e where everyone is sipping drinks with umbrellas in them while sitting around in Barcaloungers special built to hold a half ton person.

“Enjoy life,” he said as if he had found the answer to the age-old question: What is the meaning of life?

“I’m going to have to write about this,” I said.

“No worries. Missy has already written your next Rants in the Pants. I can tell you, it will be better than you can do.”

It was at this point that I woke up drenched in sweat. What a nightmare!

When the hour was decent, I ran over to my friend’s place. I had to be assured that what went through my mind the night before was just a dream.

My friend opened the door. I entered and he offered me a cup of coffee, which he made himself.

“How is your robot coming along?” I asked.

He showed me his bot in the back room. It was a mess. Not at all pretty like the one in the dream.

“This is Bessie. Isn’t she beautiful?”

I paused a moment before answering. “Yes, it is as long as it doesn’t start writing rants.”

“Welllll,” my friend said, “Just as you knocked at the door, I was sending you the link to Bessie’s new website. Why, she already has more rants posted than you have, and she just started this morning.”

Now that just scattered my brain all over the Northern Hemisphere. You couldn’t have hurt me more it you’d hit me upside the head with a hammer. Somewhere deep in my subconscious mind I knew it would come to this, but so soon?

I have one question to ask my readers: What are you going to do when the robots and AI take your job?

They came for the baker, and I said nothing because I liked the perfection of the AI bread. The baker was fired.

They came for the plumber, and I said, “He’s smelly any way and I don’t like the exposure of his back.” The plumber was fired.

They came for the waitress, and I was happy I didn’t have to tip. The waitress was fired.

Then they came for the writers including me and I bit the hell outa my lip.