On loneliness and automation

A fancy coffeemaker is a good replacement for companionship. At night, when you are getting ready for another workday, you can gently place coffee grounds into the filter using the specially-made tablespoon (that clicks into the side of the machine, of course) and you can hit that "delay" button like this is not a gift from current you to future you, a gift for tomorrow you to thank past you for. You can erase that memory for eight hours.

If you time it just right, coffee will be ready before you yourself are ready to get up and you will smell it from upstairs and it will almost feel like someone else made it for you. You can imagine that maybe someone crawled out of your bed before you and before the alarm and made you a cup of coffee. It will be a communal coffee experience! Even if you must go to your job, someone made you coffee!

You can venture downstairs with a self-deluded optimism about what you will find. Sadly, what you find will just be your coffeemaker. This will not actually be a surprise. You know you slept alone and that you only have Last Night You to thank. But you also have your fancy, automated coffeemaker. And that's as good companionship as most people ever get.