Gratitude Journal- Day 18: Nikki (our Roomba)

Keeping a house clean is a challenge. Both the NFO and I are running around daily and let's just say that the kids don't always help as much as I would like ;-)

Recently, however, I bought a Roomba robot vacuum and it's been a nice stress minimizer for me. We call the Roomba, "Nikki" (more on that later).

When the kids leave in the morning, I do a quick walk through of the main floor of the house, picking up anything that will get in the way of Nikki doing her job (like shoelaces, etc.)

Then, I push the button (I was going to say 'turn her on,' but thought better of it) and go about my business. About an hour or so later, she returns to her dock and the house has had a nice vacuuming. For a wanna-be Zen guy, it's a great feeling.

We call the Roomba "Nikki" for a few reasons.

"Nikayon" in Hebrew means "clean up" or "cleaning."

Then, in a nod to our Finland fetish, we made it "Nikkanen" (to go along with Tikkanen, Jokinen, and Lakkanen).

Finally, we shortened it to "Nikki."

When we were deciding what to call Nikki, we also had to determine gender. I didn't want to assume it was a female who did the cleaning and we thought that Nikki could be male or female.

However, Lakkanen (age 9) suggested that Nikki was actually a transgender female, so we agreed that Nikki was a transgender female robot vacuum.

As part of the deal, Lakkanen is also known as "Nikki Janitorial Service Team" as she is responsible for cleaning the Roomba after each use.

So, today, I am grateful to the inventors of Roomba who give me a feeling of serenity.  I am grateful for the effort they put into creating something that works (pretty damn well) and which has some amazing technology to solve a need.