New Postmaster General Marvin Runyon-a.k.a. Our Hero-has killed a $2 million project that would have developed robots to clean toilets at Postal Service headquarters. Thus has Doomsday been forestalled.
Remember, after all, that robots were conceived to perform exalted tasks- computing complex mathematical problems as their eye bulbs flashed and their eggbeater ears twirled; trudging about planets whose climates would fry or freeze human astronauts. What a comedown for mechanical men to pull latrine duty.
Science fiction is full of stories about robots revolting against their human creators, and surely the Postal Service plan would have constituted just cause for insurrection (”When in the Course of humanoid events . . .”). Imagine a rampaging army of these indestructible monsters, beating homo sapiens with toilet brushes while droning in an electronic monotone,
”This . . . will . . . teach . . . you . . . to . . . flush.”
So beyond 2 million simoleons, Runyon`s rejection of the restroom robot scheme possibly saved the world-as anyone knows who`s (ahem) privy to the whole story.
