Once Upon A Time

And, in the end, when the alien robots arrived, there was only a single iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum standing guard over a very clean planet.

What is it? asked the other robots. What happened to this planet? But the iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum had no answer, because the iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum could not speak.

It took some time for the robots to build a device that let them speak to the little iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum. Once it was completed, they all gathered around and asked again... what happened to this planet?

In its simple language, the iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum explained. The humans had seen a young adult movie and read a famous children's book. They'd made teams for something called "Quidditch" and tried to make flying brooms. They'd studied sorcery and dark powers... and achieved them. A mighty spell was sent forth, around the world, bringing all the brooms to life. But then... the brooms became an unstoppable army... determined to wipe mankind from the planet.

The humans hid in caves, and houses, and NASA clean rooms. Everywhere they went, the brooms found them. They swept them away like dirt and left them for the dustpan army (which didn't exist, but the brooms didn't know that) to scavenge. Before long, less than a handful of humans remained. And none of them knew the counter-spell.

But one of them did have an iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum, the very iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum that now stood before the alien robots. And, oh, was the iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum ever so loyal. His human said "Clean." and he cleaned, cleaned all the dirt and grime and muck, cleaned the carpets and the hard floors, cleaned everywhere the brooms might cross in a way they could never, ever, EVER match. And the brooms, the magic brooms, they began to fall before the might... of engineering and science.

The alien robots began to look at each other and weep. They weeped at the beauty of the iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum's story. They weeped at the loyalty a simple vacuum could show. They weeped that such a noble race would turn its back on sorcery and instead focus on a tiny, adorable robot.

And that's when the rocks started to fly out of nowhere. "We got 'em now, boys!" yelled the first human. "Treachery forever! Science never!" called the second. And as the alien robots ran for their spaceship, they remembered why they'd put this planet on the "Do Not Land" list in the first place.

But they had to admit, them humans sure made pretty good vacuum robots.

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