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The television in the living room was turned off. So was most everything else in the house... save for one single light, in that same room.
On the couch sat a, noticeably frustrated and worried, 30-something-year-old man, to whom that particular evening was a very important one. And the deed which was the reason behind this importance could not be done without the means that was currently causing him frustration.
Jason, for the above reason, kept repeatedly checking the time, for what was in reality every 30 seconds, but might as well have been every 5 seconds, how it felt to him. He kept switching between sitting on his couch and relentlessly walking around his apartment; both inexplicably nervously.
"Come on, please... you have to show up fast..." he muttered to himself, as his hope that what he had planned would turn out well - or turn out anything at all - was slowly, but not equally surely, getting lost.
At one moment, he took a big inhale and exhale, in order to at least try to relieve himself.
He once again chose to check the time. 3:58 PM.
"They said it'd be here at 4," he kept muttering.
Soon enough, the next minute ticked. And it was at that very moment that his hope was lost. He sighed in a feeling of defeat.
"What was I thiking?" he pondered. "I seriously thought they'd take that order serio-"
And just as those exact words were on his mind:
DING!
And his mind was instantly changed.
"Wait, they actually delivered it?" he thought, with somewhat more hope.
And he didn't hesitate.
"Who is it?" he exclaimed as he walked up to his entrance door.
"Universal Dynamics, delivery," the other person responded.
Jason immediately opened.
"Yes, finally!" he exclaimed. "Where do I sign?"
"Right... here," the delivery guy answered as he barely found the right paper on which to sign that this was successful.
"Thank you very, very much," Jason said, each word more enthusiastically than the last, as he waved the delivery guy goodbye.
"Alright... what have we here?" Jason immediately went back to thinking out loud.
The unpacking was effortless.
What was standing in front of him was one model of the robots he saw on television they make in Universal Dynamics.
At first glance, this robot seemed like it had potential to go... wild.
"Wait... what's you name again...?" Jason wondered, as he skimmed through the manual. "Uh-huh... ROZZUM-7134..." he concluded.
As he decided to make a more detailed observation of the manual, he found which button he had to push to turn his robot on.
One more inhale and exhale. "I guess this is it," he said.
After he did what he had to... ROZZUM-7134 started glowing a light shade of blue, and very quickly stabilized herself.
Jason backed up, just in case.
"Hello," the robot spoke. "Thank you for purchasing from Universal Dynamics. My name is ROZZUM-7134. How can I help you today?"
Right off the bat, this robot came off as astoundingly friendly. Jason, of course, thought that a great advantage.
He carefully thought of what should be the first thing he tells her. After a short while, he made his decision.
"Can I call you... Roz?"
"Yes," Roz politely responded.
"Excellent," Jason quickly reacted. "Roz... I have a big task for you."
He waited for a fraction of a second, thinking that Roz would suddenly say something along the lines of "Yes, what is it?" or something like that. But that didn't happen.
So he just went on.
"I have a party in this apartment in 4 hours, and I was planning for one very important at this party. But my previous plan got ruined just yesterday. I need you to organize this for me."
"Task acquired," Roz responded. "A ROZZUM always completes its task! How would you like me to organize the party?"
Once Roz uttered those words, Jason spent a good few dozen seconds doing nothing but standing in front of her, fastly turning back into despair.
One of his genuine expectations, when he was ordering this robot, was that she would be able to do stuff like come up with a myriad of answers to how to properly organize a party immediately after being asked so. That such an answer would've already been programmed into her.
And... that notion turned out to be nowhere near the case.
In other words... he had to personally tell her every single thing she had to do.
Which meant that... he, basically, still had to do it all himself.
"To hell with this," he thought, but was careful to not actually say it out loud, so Roz wouldn't get the wrong first impression.
So instead, he said:
"Well, okay, then," and tried, on the spot, to come up with something that at least looked like a plan. "Here's what you will do..." he added, while still not having come up with anything.
For a few more seconds, Jason still just stood there, not knowing what to say.
Then, he remembered a few details from his previous plan for this party; the one he deemed failed. And he realized he, at least in theory, could use at least some parts of that plan.
Thus, the way he continued was:
"You have to order a few cakes; one must be a chocolate cake, and two must be orange cakes... You must assemble the plates and cutlery for this table over there," Jason spoke as he pointed out to the not-all-that-big table in the dining room, "you must clean the hallway, so the guests won't be disgusted the moment they get in..."
He wanted that to be the end of his requests towards Roz. He really did.
But he knew it wasn't.
And he felt that Roz herself, despite being a robot, could have sensed that being the case.
"And you must order a turkey..." he begrudgingly finished, "...and bake it."
After a second of utter silence, waiting for Roz to respond...
"Understood," Roz spoke, sounding very enthusiastic. "Order the cakes, assemble the table, clean the hallway, order and bake a turkey."
"Phew," Jason exclaimed audibly. "You will be able to do all that in the next 4 hours... right?"
"Already on my way," Roz effortlessly responded, as Jason saw her already do something that was apparently supposed to be making a phone call. The phone was apparently built into her.
Jason was, for the moment being, just standing in front of her, letting her do whatever she needed. He was hoping Roz knew what she was doing.
"One chocolate cake and two orange cakes, please; to the address..." were the exact words he heard her say on the "phone".
And this method of hers seemed to work, because:
"Ordering cakes complete," she spoke to Jason directly after ending the call.
Jason spent a long minute pondering what had just happened... and concluded that she would do perfectly fine.
"Well, okay then," he told her, "I have to go do some other stuff, and I'll be back by around... 7:30 PM. Is that okay for you?"
"Affirmative," Roz simply answered.
Jason sighed.
"Good," he whispered. "I'll see you at that time, then," he added, as he grabbed the apartment keys and his jacket, and closed the entrance door from the outside.
As he was getting closer to his personal office, that he had acquired a block away, he kept thinking about one more thing he had to do about this whole party. One that he very intentionally avoided telling Roz a single word about.
Once he, with a bit of a struggle, arrived at that office of his, he went on to devote these few hours he had left to that thought and that thought alone. Just like he had promised to himself much earlier that day.
Well, two things, to be more precise. Two for which he was organizing this very party in the first place.
One of the few dozen people invited was his boss. Just a few days prior, he made a mistake that most would consider fatal for just about anybody's career. What he was conjuring up here was a plea. A plea that would convince his boss to refrain from firing him.
It had to actually be perfect. It just had to. And that was why that wasn't something he could let Roz do for him.
Another thing that had to be completely perfect was a proposal. Another one of the people invited was his girlfriend. Their relationship was coming close to its 4th anniversary. What better way to celebrate that anniversary, right?
Because of this set of circumstances, Jason had decided to make up two monologues; one for each of these important people in his life.
And he sat there... for those few hours... trying to come up with something... anything...
At least a few starting words...
"Stephanie..." he began mumbling to himself, "...we have been dating for quite a while now... and..."
He very quickly stopped.
"No, Jason, what are you thinking? The boss should be the first; it's literally your career that this depends on!"
So then, he switched to that.
"Well, boss, I am glad you have come over he- No, that sounds dumb... Well, boss, I suppose you can already tell why I have invi- No, that sound even stupider..."
That was how he went back and forth... back and forth... back and forth...
Nothing.
For those 3 and a half hours, Jason quite literally couldn't even conjure up a beginning to either of these two monologues that were supposed to maintain the balance in his life. Or the illusion of balance, at least.
And he had made a very firm decision that it wouldn't be a robot whose help he was even considering enlisting. It was for much more trivial purposes that Roz was even there. Not this. This was his own life, after all.
But still... it seemed like there was no other choice.
"Hm... Fine..." he uttered. "I hope she won't mind an extra task."
He quickly headed home, with much less struggle.
As he was approaching his entrance door, Jason came to the realization that there wasn't much sound coming from the other side of that door.
What he was expecting was an abundance of robotic sounds... and such.
"Please be good... please be good..." he was muttering his hopes out loud.
And as he unlocked the door - at first glance, nothing seemed off.
In fact, everything smelt just right. Clearly, the food must've been baked to perfection.
And Roz was standing just in front of him.
"All tasks have been completed," Roz said to Jason. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate my performance?"
As Roz kept saying this, the feeling that Jason had, one he spent most of this evening being unwilling to admit to himself was even present there, became gradually more apparent.
Just as he passed by her, just before he was to get in the kitchen, he stopped.
"There's one more thing I want you to do for me," he told her.
"I'm all ears," Roz proudly exclaimed.
Jason immediately began. "There are two people, among the invitees to this party, to whom I have some very important things to say. Here's what it is..." he proceeded to explain the issues that he had, that he wanted resolved. Roz just stood in front of him, completely patiently, absorbing all the information that Jason was providing her with.
Once he came to the close of his explanation:
"So I need you to come up with two monologues; one that will convince Stephanie to marry me, and one that will discurage my boss from firing me," Jason said.
"Already on my way," Roz happily exclaimed. But before she could go on with it:
"Uh, one more thing..." Jason added, getting a little closer to Roz's head, "could you keep this a secret? Just between us two."
"Affirmative."
Jason breathed a sigh of relief, and went to the rest of his apartment.
When he walked into the kitchen - oh, did he have something to see!
One of the cakes had already been poorly cut, put on the plates messily, and served on the dining table. In the process, the dining tablecloth was very tainted. And it was already too late to change it!
Furthermore, some juice was spilled around the kitchen sink, and the toaster was broken.
"What?! There's nothing she should've used the toaster for!" he exclaimed in a mixture of confusion and despair.
His next thought was to check the garbage bin.
And, as he could have expected, there were several pieces of broken plates inside it.
"Great," he sighed, "now I don't even have enough plates for all the gues-"
And then he remembered something much, much more important! He checked the fridge, but it wasn't there!
The oven?!
One look downwards, and one part part of himself was relaxed, for a fraction of a second. The chicken was in the oven.
He sighed.
One big mistake he made - which he would realize just too soon - was that he didn't check the temperature.
Altogether, this did not look good at all!
And just as Jason started thinking of how to fix at least some of these issues...
DING!
His heart came this close to stopping!
The guests... the guests are already here!
Well, now it was too late.
His last hope was that the guests wouldn't mind the mess.
Before answering the door, he had to ask Roz the obvious question.
"Have you finished the monologues?"
"Affirmative," Roz responded, as she printed two pieces of paper from her torso, each of which contained one of the required monologues.
"Thank you so much," Jason whispered to her, as he kissed the pieces of paper, and fit them in his right pocket. "One more thing. Please go to my bedroom, stay there, and don't make any noise. It's gonna be kind of very awkward if the guests find out you're here, okay?"
Roz obeyed.
Jason sighed.
Once he opened the door, the crowd that he had invited seemed way larger than it really was.
"Well, hello, guys..." he began greeting them, with a moderately fake smile on his face, "I can't believe you all got here at the exact same time! I thought you were gonna come way separately..."
One by one, he let them in; his coworkers first, then his parents, then his nephew, then...
"Good evening, boss..."
Then two of his close neighbours, then his former roommate, then...
"Hi, Stephanie..."
Those were all the guests.
"Make yourself at home, guys," Jason exclaimed to them all, "I have so much to tell you."
But in the middle of him speaking that last sentence, there were sounds of concern coming from the dining room, which some of the guests had already entered.
"Uh... were you in a hurry, Jason?" his father asked him, seeing that even the plates weren't arranged properly.
"Um... yeah, you could say that," Jason murmured.
"And why is the first thing we're eating an orange cake?" one of his coworkers exclaimed. "Shouldn't we have some proper dinner first?"
"I don't mind," Jason's nephew pointed out.
As all of that was being said, some of the guests had remained standing. For one very simple reason.
"Wait," his former roommate was the one to notice it, "there aren't even enough seats for us all!"
A very awkward silence came right afterwards.
"Did you have any sort of plan for this party, Jason?" his mother asked him, trying to sound calm.
His nephew had finished his piece of the cake.
"Don't you guys worry about me," Jason tried his best to reassure them, "I'll go get some more chairs, you just keep talking about... your personal stuff... I will just..."
BOOM!
Of course it was at that exact moment that the oven overheated, took too much, and just suddenly exploded.
The sound of that explosion was violently loud, and only lasted for a fraction of a second.
This party had already gone well off the track from what Jason had in mind.
But once all the pieces of the chicken, the one whose taste he was hoping would salvage the rest of the party, got scattered all over the kitchen, the dining room, and even some of the guests' heads...
He knew it was over.
All of his chances were gone.
The only thing Jason could do now was wait for the inevitable scolding that both Stephanie and his boss were probably already preparing in their heads. And that suspicion of his quickly proved justified.
"I presume this whole party... if you can even call it that..." Jason's boss began, without a hint of satisfaction in his tone of voice, "was supposed to be your way of making up for almost getting me killed at work today. But instead, you almost did it all once again."
A very uncomfortable pause filled Jason's apartment for the next 15 seconds. Then, his boss continued:
"I can't even consider letting you work with me anymore. You're fired."
All that Jason could do was close his eyes in shame.
He didn't go on to do anything else, because he was, by now, well aware that doing something more would only cause more problems.
So, he just waited until all the guests, very gruntingly, got up and away from the dining table and decided to leave, far from this apartment.
Which they all did in a very quick 30 seconds.
There was one thing Jason noticed during this sudden, rapid departure.
Stephanie hadn't said a thing.
This exact realization made him think, for a very short moment, that at least the chance of him proposing to her was not lost.
"No, come on, Jason..." he instantly thought to himself, "...you really think now is a good time to do that?"
And he just let her go.
For the next 20-or-so minutes, Jason just kept sitting on his couch, his face buried deep within the palms of his hands.
Even he himself was at unfathomable shock as to just how this party could have gone on this astoundingly badly. Without even having properly begun.
Until he remembered what it was - or, who it was - that made it this way.
"Roz!" he exclaimed. "She's still in my bedroom!"
He went there, sat in front of her... and turned her back on.
"Hello, Jason," Roz instantly greeted him. "How can I help you?"
Jason wanted to do a stunning amount of lashing out on her, for ruining what was meant to be a perfectly normal party with a little surprise.
But he knew it was not at all her fault.
"Um..." he didn't know how exactly to begin wording his thoughts. Then, he quickly found a way. "Thank you for your help with organizing the party..."
"You are very welcome," Roz cheerfully responded, which made Jason think she thought he was finished. So, he immediately continued:
"But it did not go at all as planned."
Even though Roz barely yielded any reaction to that, Jason could sense that her cheerfulness from moments prior was slowly going away.
"I think you'll find better luck somewhere else, instead of myself," Jason continued, and sighed. "I will send you back tomorrow."
These words made Roz feel down.
"I am very sorry it didn't work out for you," she said, in her regular voice.
"Thank you," was all Jason had to say to that.
The next morning, it had already been a few hours since Jason and Roz had parted ways.
He was currently in front of his laptop, having opened a website dedicated to job searches, but not paying much attention to it.
His mind was still on the previous night.
He thought about Stephanie.
"Maybe she would've said yes..." It was too late to wonder about that now.
Once he actually focused on the website, he found one decent offer, but not much else.
"That looks promising..." he thought out loud, as he began searching for all the documents he should attach to that application.
Once he was finished with that, and needed only click "Send"... he remembered Roz.
Despite her underachieving performance the previous night, he thought about how she was very clearly capable of performing so much more profoundly. If only she arrived at the right hands.
"She'll find someone already..." he sighed, "...there's gotta be someone for her out there in the wild..."