Rosie, Meet Bartolio Sparkles

As a kid I loved watching the Jetsons cartoon. I loved the antics of the Jetson family and was fascinated by the flying cars, the jet packs and of course Rosie the family robot. While it was fun to watch, I never dreamed that we would have anything like the futuristic Jetsons technology in our household, but I was wrong. Enter Bartolio Sparkles.

Who or what is Bartolio Sparkles you might ask? Well, it is the name our grandchildren gave to our new robot vacuum. How and why I became the owner of a robot vacuum and why I feel the need to write about it are questions you may also be asking right about now. Patience dear readers, all will soon become clear.

It was the summer of 2020 when it all started with a visit to the physiotherapist to treat my back pain which was giving me no end of problems. The physio advised me to keep moving but avoid things like walking up hills or vacuuming. Wait, what?…. no vacuuming, my least favorite house cleaning activity of all time? Despite being in pain, this was like a gift from the gods.

My husband is a kind generous man who I knew would pitch in and take over vacuuming duties, which he did without hesitation. Under my gentle guidance (or as he would describe it, watching his every move) the vacuuming got done on schedule. Fast forward several months and my husband is still vacuuming, albeit with enthusiasm waning and how often he vacuums based on how many dust bunnies he sees.

Seeing a future of dust bunnies taking over my life, I started to think about options. Enter Amazon, who magically started having pictures of robot vacuums show up whenever I was on their site. At this point the pictures were nothing more than an annoyance, but when my daughter sent me some reviews of different types of robot vacuums I started entertaining the thought.

Being the responsible consumer that I am, I consulted Consumer Reports and started reading reviews. What I noticed right away was that many people were very attached to their robot vacuums and seem to give them human characteristics, including naming them and assigning a gender. I thought this rather odd, but it didn’t stop me from finally making the big purchase.

Initially my husband was lukewarm about the idea of a robot vacuum and when he saw the price was even less impressed. But I soldiered on and played it very low key, waiting until kids and grandkids came for a visit knowing that they were enthusiastic about my new vacuum. If anyone could convince my husband to get on board, it would be the grandkids. To be entirely truthful, I also waited for kids and grandkids to arrive before getting the vacuum set up because well, I couldn’t quite figure it out… Once the grandkids settled on the name, we did a test run which was OK, but left my normally enthusiastic husband not saying a word, and me having some doubts about how useful our new robot vacuum would actually be.

Fearing that I would hear my husband channeling George Jetson with a version of his famous line “Jane, stop this crazy thing,” I decided to start small and just do one room. That went well and so I quickly expanded Bartolio Sparkles’ horizons and turned him loose on our upper level. After another successful trial, I was all in. He covered the whole area thoroughly, even under the bed and in the closet, avoided falling down the stairs and even politely let me know when the job was done. This was heaven – I could sit with a book and a glass of wine while Bartolio Sparkles vacuumed my house! I felt just like Jane Jetson.

After seeing my delight with Bartolio Sparkles, (actually I think I just wore him down) my husband was on board and soon had Bartolio Sparkles chasing down dust bunnies all over the house. It was about this time when I realized that we, as I noticed happened with other robot vacuum owners, had given our vacuum human characteristics. We talk about “putting him to work” instead of “turning the vacuum on” and “giving him a rest” instead of “the vacuum needs charging.” We always use his name instead of referring to “the vacuum,” and decided some where along the way that he is male. I am not sure why we decided he is male, but I am happy to do my part in ensuring gender equality where housework is concerned.

As a not very tech savvy household, having Bartolio Sparkles is a huge step forward for us. And now that he is an established member of our household I have only one more question I need answered. Is there a robot that can cook dinner? Now that would make my life complete.

We plan on publishing a new post every Monday so stay tuned for our next one entitled “Hang In There.”