*Beep Boop*
This morning, while perusing my favorite beauty blog, I discovered an open discussion thread and was immediately enticed by the opportunity to share my invaluable brain words, as this is apparently my greatest passion. In attempting to comment, I was presented with a matrix of blurry images and assigned the surprisingly onerous task of clicking on all of the traffic lights. After repeatedly failing to do so, I was promptly barred from delivering a scathing indictment of a plumping lip gloss that, several years ago, marred my visage so as to give me the appearance of one afflicted with oral herpes.
This incident has led me to recognize an unavoidable truth—contrary to the “About” page on this blog, I am not, in fact, a human; I am quite clearly a moderately sophisticated robot. But lest you worry about my taking your job, I will remind you that I am going to be a lawyer, and that is precisely the kind of job that normal humans should revel in not having to perform.
The first piece of evidence in favor of my being a robot is that no one knows the circumstances of my supposed “birth.” Shortly after what I will now properly refer to as my manufacturing, I was planted in the courtyard of an apartment complex in Wuhan, believed by many to be a veritable hotspot for shady and unethical laboratory experiments. A handwritten note wrapped in my blankets stated that my birthday was February 22, which I think belies the lack of creativity that plagues even the most brilliant computer engineers—could they not have come up with something more, I don’t know, organic, than 2/22? But I digress.
Another piece of evidence is my startling failure to correctly perceive things that humans comprehend with little to no difficulty at all. On my first day of geometry class, the teacher divided us into pairs and asked us to share our “math backgrounds,” which puzzled us all, because what the hell is a “math background”? But my partner, a 14-year-old named Max who appeared to be more like 35, didn’t miss a beat: “I learned algebra from a shaman while traversing the jungles of Borneo,” he declared. Fascinated, I replied, “Really?” to which Max deadpanned, “No,” and assumed the expression of one who has resigned himself to the fact that he is dealing with a total moron.
More recently, my boyfriend subjected me to a movie called The Departed, which, if Rotten Tomatoes is to be believed, 94 percent of viewers thoroughly enjoyed, and which I found deeply confusing and disorienting. This is because through the majority of the movie, I failed to distinguish between Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, believing their characters to be the same person, which—quite crucially, plot-wise—they were not.
And then there was the embarrassing moment at a bar the other weekend, when I became enthralled by the presence of a very beautiful parrot resting on the shoulder of a nearby gentleman. I proceeded to do what I typically do when I encounter an animal of interest in a public forum, that is to say, I gazed wistfully at it for a socially unacceptable duration, causing its owner to become disconcerted. “Can I pet her?” I said, longingly and with shameful disregard for the parrot’s gender identity. The owner politely replied, “It’s, uh, it’s not real. It’s for a theme party.” I looked around and discovered, belatedly, that an unusual number of those around me were wearing eye patches and head scarves, and carrying scimitars (which I am proud to say I immediately identified as not real.)
The only contravening evidence against my conclusion that I am a robot is the fact that I can understand Mandarin (if spoken slowly enough). A prominent philosopher named John Searle famously said that understanding Chinese is conclusive proof that one is not a robot (okay, that’s not precisely what he said, but I’m paraphrasing). However, if I may indulge in an ad hominum rebuttal (and I may, because this is my blog), I would like to point out that the man is a sexual predator. Worse yet, back in 2015, he fired me. Thus, much as R. Kelly’s music may no longer be listened to by respectable persons, so too are John Searle’s philosophical conclusions invalid.
In any event, I believe that definitive proof that I am a robot is forthcoming, as, sadly, I have been infected with a virus. The malware’s only effect thus far has been to entrap me in an infinite restart loop—wake, nap, wake, nap. But I expect that I will soon begin coughing up silicon chips and tiny bits of aluminum, and when that happens, I will waste no time in running everyone’s least favorite program—IToldYouSo.exe—upon the asses of my doubters.
