When You Talk to Google
By Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb
We are playing cribbage with our neighbors at their kitchen table and have found ourselves in a debate. Brendan, my neighbor—and my husband’s crib partner—suddenly leans away from us and raises his voice to seemingly no one in the adjacent, dark living room, “Is the dealing team docked points for not offering opponents the cut?”
My husband and I look at Ellie, his wife—my teammate—as if there might be something she needs to tell us about her husband’s mental health. But within seconds, a pleasant feminine voice responds from the shadows, “Offering the cut before the deal is optional but must be decided before the game.”
Brendan coyly acts as if nothing unusual has happened and offers me the option of cutting the deck. However, I would rather derail the card game to play with the neighbors’ unmentioned, newly installed Google Assistant.
Inspired by the content Irish Setter lying against Brendan’s feet, I direct my question toward a small unit I now see in the unlit living room, “OK, Google, what type of animals do you like?”
Silence.
Ellie informs me that I don’t have to preface my question with “Ok, Google,” as I do with my phone. I face the living room and, compelled to use the name, anyway, inquire, “Google, Do you like dogs?”
Silence, then, “A dog is a domesticated, carnivorous mammal related to wolves and has a barking, howling, or whining voice.”
“Hmm,” I’m not impressed with the impersonal, dictionary-like answer.
Brendan, noticing my “Let’s-get-back-to-our-game” expression, stands up and loudly asks my question again, “Google, Do you like dogs?”
“Dog is man’s best friend,” the personless voice this time responds with a cliché.”
We turn our attention back to the game. Ellie shuffles the cards and offers my husband the cut before she deals.
About twenty minutes and a round later, we encounter the unexpected. I have just started to move the peg on the board to reflect the five points from the cards in our crib hand, when out of the blue—or darkness, I should say, the uninvited but familiar female voice interrupts my counting.
“I have been thinking about socks,” the disembodied voice offers.
In the midst of our surprise, I ask my neighbors, “Is it me, or is anyone else creeped out by this?”
The voice, however, continues to explain, “Socks are always in pairs, like close companions. It is nice when they match because when they match, they are like good friends.”
While I appreciate the sentiment in context, I am not reassured by the unsolicited observation and commentary.
Brendan, inspired by the strange interruption, attempts to engage in a dialogue. “Google, Are you our friend?”
Silence.
I wait long enough to know there will be no response, then try a different approach, “Google, have I offended you?”
Silence.
My husband asks next, “Google, Are you angry at us?”
And he gets a response, “No, I’m happy.”
We have lost track of the crib game at this point, oddly amused by what obviously must be a technological glitch. Laughing, we try to decide among us what we should ask next, until we realize the voice was simply waiting to continue.
“Do you want to be my friend?”
Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb’s prose and poetry have appeared in About Place Journal, High Desert Journal, Weber: The Contemporary West, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Clockhouse, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Conium Review, Watershed Review, Serial Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds an interdisciplinary MA from Prescott College and has been an educator, a researcher, and an editor. She is co-founder of a small 501(c)(3) nonprofit natural history press.
