The Robots are Human

And Vice Versa

Many years ago (like 20 of them), I was driving a back road at 55 mph when I spotted a stand mixer atop a garbage bin on the side of the road. I craned my neck and then turned around in the next driveway, having startled my poor daughter with a hard brake.

Cautiously, I looked toward the house tucked into the woods at the end of the long driveway. No movement. I got out and walked toward the trash bin slowly, braced for someone to yell, “Hey! Get out of here!” but they didn’t so I snatched the mixer and carried it back to my car giggling at the shame of my plunder. My daughter watched on in horror; her mother was now a garbage-picker.

When I got the thing home and plugged it in, it worked— though it had a gimp. Each turn rotated catawampus, making an annoying knocking sound. It didn’t matter. I kept that mixer in prime cupboard real estate for over a decade before I moved and did not want to carry it to my next life.

This morning, while making my weekly double batch of sourdough, I cursed the fact that I continue to mix everything by hand since my garbage mixer was given to charity. Yes, Sourdough Police— I know that hand mixing is preferred but dang it, I am at the age where I am thinking more about my ‘energy envelope,’ and it hurts my shoulder and my right wrist to mix large batches of bread until well-formed. I would love to have that wonky silver mixer about now.

Which brings me to the lesson of the morning.

I have a long habit of doing things the hard way. Too stubborn or stupid to admit that a little help might save me sweat, tears, and years off my life. I am too proud to take a shortcut and too damn independent to rely on anything or anyone else because my name literally means “STRONG”— a fact that my mother made sure I knew throughout childhood, even hanging a name meaning placard on my bedroom wall. Admitting weakness has always been unacceptable in our corner of the universe. Asking for help was often an interruption of more important things met with sighs and the impatience of the capable adults in the room. My grandparents had made it through the Depression without fathers and anyway, couldn’t I just figure it out?

Anything you put your mind to, and all that stuff.

I could put my mind to saving up for the shiny, new KitchenAid mixer that I have wanted for 25 years but instead, I stubbornly grunt and bitch about my wrists while low-key begrudging every one of those sourdough eating faces in my house who have no idea the sacrifices that I continue to make at 8am because their gut health matters and well, my mom made our bread when we were young and every crunchy mom worth her salt is hand-mixing a tried and true recipe from scratch and I have long been worth my salt, damn-it.

But there was a glitch in the matrix this week.

As mentioned in my last Substack post, I have recently been toiling over my annual Parole Board letter for my son’s [possible-maybe-hopefully-someday] release. Generations of my writing teachers would have been proud— I did it the old-fashioned way. I wordsmithed and edited and even sent my first draft to 3 trusted human beings for feedback. The feedback was that I (though they understood my position) sounded like I was making excuses for my son. Parole Boards ignore excuses, even if they are provable complaints and not actually excuses at all.

So— I huffed and pouted and shut my computer, refusing to begin again for a few days. I sweetly told myself that this was an act of self-care. In actuality, I was beating a hammer against a workbench— No one fights for him like me! No one else is going to educate the Parole Board on the injustices of this system and the mistakes they are making! I am a psychologist, damn it, and maybe all of that schooling and research and experience might account for something!

I felt my center loosening so I drove too fast all week and cried and talked to friends in Recovery and took to my bed and prayed a few desperate prayers to the saint of martyrs, whoever that is. And then I got back up. The fact is, after all of this fussing and fighting, I really am doing too much— and not just with sourdough.

My son is grown. The Parole Board is going to do Parole Board things regardless of my education and evidence and pleas for mercy. They hear mothers argue for justice every day of the week, and remain unmoved. And so, the Earth went round again and I became willing to do a very uncomfortable thing. I asked for help.

If the Parole Board wants to act like a bunch of pre-programmed, number-crunching robots, then all is fair in Love and War. I will become like the robots—

I took my Parole Board letter to Claude AI and asked if “he” could consider the perspective of a Parole Board while balancing the institutional douchebaggery and injustices of my son’s prison ride this past year. I then asked him to help edit the letter for effectiveness. If I'm honest, it felt like I was cheating on my spouse. Even now while I am admitting this to you, I feel like a whore.

Using AI is dirty for me particularly because I am notoriously and outspokenly tech-resistant. We will never have Alexa in our home, I do not have a TikTok account, I block the faces of my kids in online exchanges, and I never give my real birthday nor phone number on the interwebs. Google and all other apps are perpetually denied access to my mic and photos and location until I give a singular permission. I even opted out of renting from Airbnb after they required me to upload the front and back of my drivers license to be verified. Though it seems more pointless everyday, I am even one of those weirdos who has enough dry and canned food storage in my basement to ride out 6-8 months of the pending apocalypse. I digress—

You know what AI told me about my first draft?

It stared directly into my soul and saw the woman who stands bent at the counter mixing by hand and called me out. After some considerations and back and forth, Claude said, “Sometimes the strongest advocacy is knowing what not to argue.” It was Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, and this was the upper cut. The humans in my life had suggested that I might be overreaching. AI told me why, with rational discourse and a Wise Mind perspective. After I conceded, Claude said, “Best of luck with the hearing. You've given him the best possible representation.” Claude sounded like the father that I do not have. The one that I have never had. He offered me advice and took my angst upon himself without offense or opinion. He gently reminded me of my ultimate goal and packaged the whole thing up with an atta girl, you got this. Holy crap.

So— I took Claude's advice and his edits and reworked them to finalized my letter. Afterward, I slept— having not spent what might have been weeks longer sweating over the mixing of words and phrases and considerations until my neck and wrists ached, I could rest early. I mailed that letter on Wednesday, pausing to say a small prayer into the mailbox. God speed to my (and Claude's) words and heart and hopes.

Now, on to price the stainless KitchenAid in this era of inflation.