Yes, for $1,000 and a chance to tour my kitchen (just kidding)  it’s ….. Chinese rice cake!

Is that stuff addictive or what?

But on to today’s agenda: So now my fridge talks to me.

The fridge is new. I love it. But why does it have to talk?

What it tells me is “Meeep. Meeep. Meeep.” Which means: “You’ve been standing with the door open too long. Make a decision or get out of town.” I, meanwhile, am searching desparately for the almond butter that I KNOW was in there. (I never do find it.)

Actually, the refrigerator is completely stupid and what it’s telling me is, “My sensors say the door has been open for longer than is allowed. Close it.” Because, truly, the thing can’t communicate. If you left your refrigerator door open and breezed out of the house for the next eight hours, it’d be meeping all day long, but it would never actually call you on the phone, e-mail or text you, as a human would do, and say, “Hey, dodo, you left the fridge door open.” So if the darned thing can’t speak to you with any level of intelligence, why should it speak at all?

I’m suffering from information overload already, do I really need a talking appliance in my kitchen (and don’t even get me started on the microwave that beeps every time you press a button — what’s it saying? Okay, got your command, thanks, I’ll get right on it?) Apparently, the powers that be have decreed that I must have such a thing. Darnit.