Apparently seven people living in this house is not enough, because this week M came home with Alexa. He sat her in the kitchen, on the island in the center of just about every thing. 
I did not like her. 
Alexa is the Amazon Echo, and she’s always turned on. Like having the iphone Siri all over your home. At least, that’s the way M explained her to us.  She can access the cloud and whatever happens to be on Amazon Prime. 
 “So we can just yell things at it whenever we want to know something?” asked Number Two. 
“Can we all yell at once?” asked Number One. 
Yes, and yes, although she may not be able to hear you. 
“So we just yell louder?” asked One. “And whoever is loudest wins?”
Something that lives in the kitchen, at which you can yell things, and at which you may yell louder if at first she does not respond?
“Wait!” chimed in Three. “HOW IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN MUMMY?”
Exactly. I don’t need any competition and I certainly don’t need it from something with a porn star name. Can’t we rename it Maggie? (It seems that we can.)
I ignored her for a few days, and then, in a moment of weakness mixed with curiousity, I sat down next to her and said, “Alexa — I’d like to hear “Come Fly With Me” by Frank Sinatra. 
Maybe she wasn’t so bad. 
Nicely done. How about “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin?
Maybe we could be friends after all. 
I come home from an early morning run to find the little girls sitting next to Alexa, going through the entire Katy Perry Songbook. The boys wanted to hear some jokes. It soon devolved into all five kids shouting orders at Alexa. Otherwise known as breakfast. 
She’s smart though and has already chosen favorites. 
One child, who believes he is nobody’s favorite, feels that Alexa ignores him. He shouts orders at her and she does not respond. I shout louder and she ignores me. Another child, who believes he is everybody’s favorite, walks into the room and asks her to do exactly what neither of us could. She lights up and does exactly what he asks. 
It’s messy. 
I also worry that she can hear things. And that someone, somewhere is keeping a file on all the things I say about people who think I like them, and all the creative ways I find of yelling at the kids. 
So far, the only winners here are the guinea pigs, who are now being largely ignored.