Dorothy opened the front door of her home and entered her living room. Her husband was on the sofa, his curious face lifted up to hers with a smile. It was obvious that he needed to talk but she was tired from meetings all day and hoped that he would keep it short.
Their relationship was quite typical of the time. She, the breadwinner, worked all day while he stayed at home. With the exception of the brief period while she was pregnant and nursing their children, it had always been that way. His skills as automation and computer systems engineer were simply too poorly paid to support them and it was pure practicality that dictated that she went out to work to support their family. Besides men were far better at domestic roles than women, they had a knack of keeping the domestics operative, whereas women rarely had the will or the interest. Not that it was a difficult role, mind you. The new generation of domestics were easy to operate, maintain and program, but men more than women seemed to get pleasure in running and fixing them.
"How was your day?" he asked.
She smiled hurriedly, not wanting to seem too willing to engage in a marathon discussion. "Fine."
"I fixed the cleaner today," he beamed, proud of his accomplishment.
She grimaced inside. She knew what came next. He would explain to her how he had isolated the problem to one of the stepper motors, or some such component, or a cold solder joint here or there… how he had spent all morning with oscilloscope and computer tracing the problem, located the part they needed over their Mechanonet Link, had it delivered and fixed by the afternoon.
It never ceased to amaze her how much importance he attributed to these trivial tasks. She would spare him the reply that the cleaner's own self diagnostic capability would have identified the module that was defective and a simple phone call would have an exchange module delivered within the hour at very minor cost. His insistence at fixing everything himself cost her a small fortune.
"That's good dear", she replied, her mind wandering back to her own day's work and the tasks she needed to plan for tomorrow. She was only dimly aware of her husband's ongoing dialogue.
"Dorothy... ?", ...she was still off in her own thoughts.
"Hmm…?"
"Dorothy, ...why don't you ever listen to me?"
She snapped back to attention. This discussion was escalating rapidly. She knew where this was heading.
"You never listen to me. All you ever think about is your work. You just take me for granted..."
She tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, "Of course I don't take you for granted. I really do appreciate the importance of what you do. I just don't have the same interest in the same things as you do.", only the edge of her smile betrayed her contempt. Trying to show concern she added, "So it was the pulse width modulator that failed this time?"
"You weren't listening at all, were you?", he was getting angry. Behind him the automatic mood modulator ejected soothing gas to calm him down. "You never listen. I already told you that it was the sequencer that was not operating at the right frequency."
"Oh", she paused, "I'm sorry dear," she forgot what a sequencer was. She knew that he had explained it to her at numerous times in the past. She wouldn't ask again. "I'm just a bit tired tonight – I’ve had a hard day."
He began pouting as he usually did when they got to this stage in their discussion.
"So Jack, what are you planning for tomorrow?" she asked.
"Oh…" his mood lifted, "I'm going golfing in the morning and then to the culinary automation meeting tomorrow."
She knew all about this. It was a voluntary group of men, organized by women, that developed technical refinements and new programmed recipes for the Gourmet 9 Beta type cooking machines. It was a make work project to keep bored husbands like hers busy and superficially productive. The world really didn't need improvements to cooking machines. She was glad he went though. The alternative was that he might accidentally program the cleaners to collide just so that he could spend a week or more of her salary in parts to fix them. The golf club membership was another sore point. She spent more on his leisure activities than she did on herself.
"That's nice. What are you working on now?" her mind was already wandering again. Men and food – how ironic. He claimed to be an expert on cooking yet on their vacation last summer at the cabin he was totally helpless. It was she who had to show him how to use pots, pans and a stove. In the end she had regretted that she hadn't done it herself. Half the food had been inedible.
The dialogue continued for some time. From the kitchen, the smell of food drifted in. It was almost time for supper.
"So Jack, what have you programmed for us tonight?" she asked.
Her husband looked up, a sparkle in his otherwise empty eyes, "Well, I'm trying something new today honey."
Oh no, she thought. This probably meant disaster. It would probably mean 24 hours of nutritional balancing to get her system back to normal. She never understood why he didn't simply request one of the 12,000 or so preprogrammed menus, many of which were excellent and all correctly proportioned, instead of trying to be creative. He never really got it right.
They ate in silence. The food really wasn't as bad as usual and her comment was almost genuine when she said, "That was delicious dear."
Around them the dishwasher whirred, circling the table to collect the dirty dishes.
Jack beamed, "I'm glad you liked it. For tomorrow I'll have to make an automenu dish if you don't mind. The committee meeting will probably go until 7.00pm and I have some shopping to do on the way back."
"That'll be just fine dear," she said. She was relieved. She'd have a quiet evening to herself.
She looked over at him wondering if this was good timing. She had a small gift for him. She smiled warmly.
"I have something for you," she said, knowing that this would make his day.
He looked up expectantly.
"It's in my bag. You can go get it if you want."
He went to the doorway and retrieved her purse, hesitantly looking inside as he brought it to her. She took the bag and retrieved the blue gift-wrapped box, enjoying the momentary anticipation as he hovered nearby.
She looked up at him looking for evidence of gratitude. He did not disappoint her.
"Here it is dear," she said and added, "it's okay, go ahead it's yours." She smiled genuinely, happy to please. She didn't know exactly what it was, having sent Fred off to buy and select it.
She watched with amusement as he tore off the wrapping. Inside was a polished titanium shell with a Hewlett Packard logo. It was a 120 Gigahertz Multiscope apparently, waterproof to 20 atmospheres and impact rated to 80 Gs. Not that her husband needed another one. This was a gift edition, however, that had come out just in time for Christmas. Her husband would be the first to get one and would get a thrill showing it among his friends. She'd get flack from her friends, however, since she'd be held responsible for the fact that the male rivalry would force them all to buy new ones.
Her husband came over beaming. "Oh Dorothy, it's beautiful. How did you know that I needed one like this?" He kissed her on her outstretched cheek.
She was embarrassed. "It really wasn't anything Jack."
Dorothy went off occupied for the rest of the evening. She was glad to have Jack as a husband. He was a very handsome man and the envy of her friends. Good looks were important in a man these days.
She went back to her thoughts, retrieving the newest terrain analysis on her wallcom. Her job as the chief thematic and mood designer for the Habitat was the most senior role in the project in a female dominated profession. The few men in the field with any talent were almost all homosexuals and they mostly filled the junior roles.
She looked up at the calendar, luminescent on the wall. Dec 5 - God how time flew. She could scarcely believe that 2043 was almost over.
John Saringer is a resident of Whitchurch-Stouffville and co-creator of Mysthaven (www.mysthaven.com) where he lives with his wife Mariel and two children, Alex and Tamara. He combines his passion for writing with his interests in human development and environmental sustainability. He is a Bio-Mechanical engineer specializing in non-invasive medical device development.