{"sf1_id":2159920,"sf2_id":"Rm08Q8Wm","title":"Electroluxe!, Chapter Nine.","author":"BoxCrate","words":2344,"posted_at":"2024-08-04T02:20:33.000Z","tags":["1960's","1970's","Blue-collar humor","Cat","HMOFA","Human","Mild Retro-Futurism","Robot"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2159920-electroluxe-chapter-nine","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Rm08Q8Wm","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/b0/68/b068cfc8-51ec-45b7-adfe-e320be87547e","description":"Surprise!  \n  \nSorry it took me so long, I promised myself I wouldn't let a whole year go by without an update and just barely squeaked that. Even on \"Until further notice\" hiatus I refuse to just completely forget this story. Don't mind any other notifications you might get from me, I'm going to be running through and fixing some grammatical errors and word choices in most of the previous chapters.  \n  \nFor updates on me, I'm still working on that game project but I will do my darnedest to get you a chapter far sooner than 11 months late. Thanks for your patience guys, I appreciate you more than you know. As an apology, enjoy the little doodle I made of Julie's totally canon evil identical twin in my gallery, as I've been getting into art a little bit on my off days to stay sharp.","content":"\\\u003eOnly a few days of maintaining this house, and you’re already finding your rhythm.  \n\\\u003eAt the current pace, you should be through the kitchen and done by one. Maybe two o’clock, if you really polish the inside of the oven.  \n\\\u003eNot that it really needs it, the thing looks practically brand new.  \n\\\u003eThe one at class seemed like it was on it’s last legs, you didn’t even need to see a nice new one to know that.  \n\\\u003eBut this definitely helps put it into perspective.  \n\\\u003eIt’s sleek, mint green, and only had the remnants of a few scorch marks.  \n\\\u003eIt was actually really close to your dress color… Everything in the kitchen is.  \n\\\u003eYou’re glad that your dress is a color he likes, even if you weren’t the one he ordered.  \n\\\u003eBut this oven.  \n\\\u003eAnon clearly hadn’t used it too many times.  \n\\\u003eA shame. You always did think baking was one of the more entertaining parts of cooking.  \n\\\u003eEmily had once played back one of her memories of watching the instructors bread dough rise in fast forward.  \n\\\u003eThe way the dough swelled, and even seemed to breathe at points was mesmerizing.  \n\\\u003eYou still had that memory. Watched it every few days.  \n\\\u003eYou’re glad to know that she got to go and do something so interesting. She earned it with her near perfection.  \n\\\u003eThe inside of the oven glows a soft blue.  \n\\\u003eAdjusting…  \n\\\u003eThere, back to white spotlights.  \n\\\u003eWearing your emotions on your face could be a little bothersome, but it made it easier for your owner to read you, our trainer said.  \n\\\u003e_I am content._  \n\\\u003eWatching the tiny, time dried scorch marks come off is nice.  \n\\\u003eThe sleek, black metal interior returning to it’s factory shine.  \n\\\u003eJust as you had expected, it’s almost two O’clock when you finish the oven, hip servos whirring in protest as you straighten back up.   \n\\\u003eYou check their status for just a second, eyes flashing green with an OK flash.  \n\\\u003eLittle warm, probably time to give them a rest and do something that doesn’t require you to bend weird.  \n\\\u003eYou look around the immaculate house.  \n\\\u003eYep. Definitely more stuff to do…  \n\\\u003eYou wander your way back into the den, the empty TV screen reflecting your image.  \n\\\u003eStill a cat.  \n\\\u003eYou see the reflection of soft violet for a moment.  \n\\\u003eYou feel your synthetic lungs fill with air, before blowing it out hard.  \n\\\u003eInstructors did this sometimes when they were upset, you and your sisters had taken to doing it, realizing that it even made you feel better, in a way.  \n\\\u003eWhy they would intentionally make _stress_ a part of you is not something you think you would ever get a good answer for.  \n\\\u003eYou take another look around the room, finding that- yet again- there’s nothing you can do to make it better than it is.  \n\\\u003eWell, maybe you could scrounge up enough laundry to use that fancy machine one more time.  \n\\\u003e...If you really stretched what counts as ‘dirty’. Who knows how long what little he has hung up has been in there.  \n\\\u003eNot too long you suppose, after such long hours at the... whatever it is he does. They must give him plenty of time off to use the nicer suits, dress shirts, and dark blue jeans.  \n\\\u003eWhat precious little there were of them.  \n\\\u003eWith four hours to go until Anon was due to come home, you could start getting dinner ready for him. \\\u003eYou did come preprogrammed with a few recipes for soup that could take that long to cook, but humans usually didn’t like to eat warm foods like that in the spring, you were told.  \n\\\u003eNow that you thought of it...  \n\\\u003eIt is probably about when Anon is eating his lunch.  \n\\\u003eYou really hope he likes it, Cooking was one of the more difficult skills to master, given that you don’t have all the senses that people have to do it.  \n\\\u003eNot that it stopped you, one of the instructors by the end even said we were all ‘damn good cooks!’  \n\\\u003eYou didn’t even know those people were allowed to curse, let alone _able_.  \n\\\u003eBut it did instill a sense of pride that you could make such a professional break character, just with a stew.  \n\\\u003eYou wonder what it’s like to taste as you standby for one charge cycle, just long enough for the last load of Anon’s laundry to dry.  \n  \n+------------+  \n  \n\\\u003eThank our lord for the microwave oven.  \n\\\u003eBut to hell with your ability to work the damned thing.  \n\\\u003eThe sandwich bread was heated to scorching, but the bacon was still cold enough to have the awful grittiness of solid lard to it’s surface.  \n\\\u003eWith your luck, if you ran it a few seconds longer your new robot’s hard work might explode.  \n\\\u003eStill, it was excellent, and beat the ‘cold all the way through’ turkey sandwiches you brought any other day.  \n\\\u003eBefore your mind can steer toward any thoughts of your interesting living situation, the car shuttling your thoughts- and by extension your little world of sandwich enjoyment-\u0026nbsp; wrapped itself around a very Tom shaped tree.  \n\\\u003e”Where’d you get that?” He asks between bites of his homemade meatloaf.  \n\\\u003eYou jerk your head up slightly, not realizing you _actually had_ zoned out with some good food in your mouth for once.  \n\\\u003e”Get what?” You ask, wiping your chin absentmindedly with a sleeve. You knew exactly what he was asking about.  \n\\\u003e”The sandwich. I’ve never seen you eat something that nice.”  \n\\\u003e”I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat anything other than some sad turkey, with sad provolone, sad lettuce, and sad tomatoes on sad whole wheat. Quite the change of pace.” Vance interjects.  \n\\\u003e”Your car’s sad.”  \n\\\u003e”I happen to like my lemon.” He answers without a beat, immune to the same topic you’ve gone to since Junior year.  \n\\\u003eYou just shoot him a short glare before continuing.  \n\\\u003e“It’s ‘cause I didn’t make it.” You said, ignoring the jabs between wonderful bites. “You know I can’t cook worth a damn.”  \n\\\u003e”Well, where’d you get it from then? I’d certainly like to know a sandwich shop that makes a BLT that nice.” Tom continued.  \n\\\u003e”It’s even toasted.” Linus says peering at your sandwich.  \n\\\u003e”Wrong again. Look.” You open the sandwich, ‘showing’ it so close to Vance that he has to back into his seat to not be coated in mayo. “Same ‘sad’ ingredients, just made by a little electric someone who knows how to cook.”  \n\\\u003e”There’s bacon in there.” He continued.  \n\\\u003e”Same sad ingredients, plus one.”  \n\\\u003e”You’re telling me your new robot made a restaurant quality sandwich? Now I’m almost excited.” Tom said with a smirk.  \n\\\u003e”Like you weren’t already excited to be a dick.” You respond flippantly, closing it back up and enjoying your next bite too much to be really bothered by Toms poking.  \n\\\u003e”Eh, you got me.”  \n  \n+------------+  \n\u0026nbsp;  \n\\\u003eIt’s all so… heavy.  \n\\\u003eYou had no trouble lifting it out of the laundry machine of course, but you had never seen anything like it, or been taught for it.  \n\\\u003eYou were fairly certain, however, that the clothes could easily handle the only slightly amateur treatment of a skilled folder.  \n\\\u003eIf that folder could get the darned things to actually, you know, fold.  \n\\\u003emost of it was haphazardly hampered in one corner of the frugally furnished living room, with random stiff articles of clothing sticking out of the bin and threatening to crumple to the floor if they so felt like it.  \n\\\u003eWith all of the wire coat hangars you could scavenge hooked nicely into a convenient clip that stayed seamlessly hidden on the inside of your apron, you attacked the article in front of you.  \n\\\u003eIt was a tan overcoat, at least as far as you could tell, banded red about the sleeves and waistline. \\\u003eAlong with the dozens of pockets, buttons, and zippers, were strange brightly colored stains, just like every other piece of clothing he had.  \n\\\u003eYou had nearly warped your shoulders getting them out of the coat he wore this morning, and decided to put a pin in the stain free project for now.  \n\\\u003eWith thick canvas fabric even more thickly sewn with flat-felled seams, the construction of what you could only think of as “Armor” being surely strong enough to protect whoever was wearing it from anything your core could imagine.  \n\\\u003eAlmost like what a firefighter might wear, but from what little training you received about household emergencies told you it couldn’t be the case. Firemen wore black with yellow or white bands, not tan and red.  \n\\\u003eYet another point of interest to file away about this strange occupation your owner must have.  \n\\\u003eThat is what stayed in the forefront of your electric mind as you took a pair of somehow even heavier pants and forced the legs to bend at the knee.  \n\\\u003eWhat did Anon do?  \n\\\u003eEvery small mention of it so far, as well as the strange outfits painted a scary picture.  \n\\\u003eWas he some kind of firefighter you had just never been taught about? One who maybe ran into danger in a forest somewhere, instead of a city given the tan color?  \n\\\u003eWould certainly be difficult to keep a six to six schedule, if that was the case.  \n\\\u003eA false grunt emanated from your maw as you sat your entire body on the pants to make the final fold.  \n\\\u003eA factory worker then? The stains and heavier clothing would almost make sense to you then, but factories weren’t supposed to be dangerous anymore.  \n\\\u003eNot to mention that all the factory workers you had seen in your short life had been wearing denim overalls at most, not the woven chainmail Anon was wearing to work…  \n\\\u003eAnother point to the fireman theory was the fair number of what looked like scorch marks around the sleeves of some of his coats.  \n\\\u003eCertainly not as much as you would think for running into burning buildings all day, but certainly more fire than you surmised would be around in a factory.  \n\\\u003eSo confusing.   \n\\\u003ePerhaps tonight after work would be a good time to ask… though you didn’t want to be a bother. _Seen and not heard_ and all.  \n\\\u003eGreat job, by the way.  \n\\\u003eThat horrid buzzing certainly wasn’t helping you think.  \n\\\u003eThe horrid buzzing right behind you.  \n\\\u003eThat you were making.  \n\\\u003eYou cough and throttle down your auxiliary cooling fan, anxiety had a tendency to raise the speed to unacceptably audible levels without your noticing.  \n\\\u003e_What were you anxious for anyway?_ You ask yourself, nearly out loud. _He’s been taking care of himself fine for years before you showed up._  \n\\\u003eYou hope.  \n\\\u003eThe contents of his refrigerator on your first day weren’t terribly reassuring.   \n\\\u003eYou didn’t even know what half of the things in there were, but somehow you instinctively knew they were terrible.  \n\\\u003eSticks of dehydrated mystery meat, damp foil wrapped sandwich halves, something apparently called a ‘Twinkie’  \n\\\u003eAlmost none of it was some sort of ingredient you could identify, just strange blocks that were like oily bread or dried beef.  \n\\\u003eYou worried that even Anon noticed your disgust for it when he was introducing you to your new… workspace.  \n\\\u003eBefore you know it you’re back in Anon’s closet, putting one of the last precarious stacks of folded and hung work equipment onto his coat rack.  \n\\\u003eSuch personal spaces, they had said, were to be treated as hallowed ground. Do your work and look at nothing.  \n\\\u003eWhich is exactly that you did.  \n\\\u003eAnd that’s why you don’t blame yourself for the shelving next to the rack being disturbed by the new weight.  \n\\\u003eAnd the now very much on the floor fragile looking wooden box.  \n\\\u003eAt least, you _tried_ not to blame it on yourself.  \n\\\u003eDarn, darn, darn it all!  \n\\\u003eYou quickly flip it over, and check it for injuries.  \n\\\u003eNone on the outside that you can see.  \n\\\u003eNow to run your luck and find out it was his secret crystal glass collection on the inside.  \n\\\u003eCan’t go one full day without making a problem!  \n\\\u003eEven after making it all the way to the end and doing exactly what you were built to do you just couldn’t manage the simplest of things.  \n_\\\u003e’No reason to work yourself up like that, sis.’_  \n\\\u003eYour fan throttles down again.  \n\\\u003eEmulating another sigh, you allow yourself a second to breathe.  \n\\\u003eCarefully unlatching the metal pin on its top, you peer in to the wooden cube.  \n\\\u003eOh wow.  \n\\\u003eIt’s a- _thankfully **un** harmed_- record player.  \n\\\u003ePerhaps your bad luck had paid for one good thing to happen today.  \n\\\u003eWell, two maybe.  \n\\\u003eYou always loved music when on your rare downtime during training.  \n\\\u003eThe one older classical record that they played on repeat certainly wasn’t the most enjoyable on your 50th listen, but it beat the sound of silence or one of your more vain sister units primping her hair.  \n\\\u003eHopefully he doesn’t take this being out of place as you snooping, and understands that it was your mistake.  \n\\\u003eIn any case, what a discovery!  \n\\\u003eA real record player, and it’s not even owned by a company.  \n\\\u003eSo many possibilities, imagine all the wonderful music Anon must have.  \n\\\u003eYou would imagine what kinds of music he’d listen to, but you haven't heard much yourself.  \n\\\u003eUp on the shelf next to the empty spot the thing must’ve come from there was most certainly a box containing some flat squares about record sized.  \n\\\u003eAs much as your curiosity pushes you to investigate the musical tastes of your charge, the logical part of your core tells you that just discovering the record player is exploration enough for one day.  \n\\\u003eYou are very much interested in having some entertainment during your day, you can only ‘sleep’ in charge cycles for so long before they become so short as to not be worth the trouble of stepping onto the charging pad.  \n\\\u003eSurely he would be fine with you listening to music as you worked, he’s been nothing but accommodating, as much as you were uncomfortable with that.  \n\\\u003e_He should be accommodated for._  \n\\\u003ePerhaps you could convince him to answer two questions, then.","series":{"name":"Electroluxe!","previous":"https://sofurry.com/s/Zeqd0dA1"}}