My husband has a new female in his life. And she’s stressing us both out so much.
She’s the voice assistant in his new car, and we’re not sure what she’s called. Ostensibly, you summon her by saying ‘Hey, Volkswagen,’ but her responses are much too unpredictable and challenging for the German efficiency that this suggests.
‘WHAT… can I do for you?’ she says, when you summon her. She sounds passive-aggressive, like the woman who had just settled down to watch her favourite tv show when her husband walks into the room and asks her to do something for him. ‘What the hell is it now?’ you imagine her saying. ‘Can’t you just let me enjoy the journey? I was looking out at the scenery, and thinking about having a doze…’
I know I’ve probably used that very same tone myself.
But it’s not just her tone of voice. She’s erratic as well. She seems to take over the functioning of the car when she’s in a mood. Some days, I’m told, she won’t let him listen to the radio. ‘Hey, Volkswagen, play Radio 2,’ asks Husband, in his most reasonable, calm tone. ‘You seem to be looking for a pizzeria in Ealing!’ she replies, sounding a bit peeved. ‘Let me find you some directions.’ 365 miles and a ferry trip later, all planned out and explained to him as he clutches his remaining hair and tries to stay securely on his road to work, he still hasn’t heard anything on the radio but is now convinced that he might never want pizza ever again.
I tell him that if he’s intending to replace me with a newer, shinier model, who’ll try to get her to take him out to dinner instead of going to work, he might be better off finding someone who doesn’t make him feel quite this stressed.
But she doesn’t stop at that. She craves attention, constantly. At home, our Alexa devices sit patiently, waiting for the wake word. I mean, I realise that they’re probably listening in on our not-very-scandal-ridden lives, wondering if we always talk about how tired and stressed we are, and if we ever go out anywhere but to work or for a walk. In the car, though, Husband’s new lady wants him to notice her. All the time. She sets off alerts and pings. And I don’t just mean now and then: I mean continually. Several times a minute through a half-hour commute to work, some days. After a bit of googling, Husband thought it was to do with the privacy settings not being set correctly. So he sat for a while in his silent, parked car one evening and did what he’d read might fix it. It was over, he sighed that night. Next morning on his commute, the car wouldn’t be pinging at him like some kind of musical, but deranged woodpecker; Apple Car Play would work, he’d be able to listen to Chris Evans and he’d arrive at work feeling calm. He was wrong. Overnight, his car-based other woman had decided that she didn’t like what he was doing, setting the privacy settings to maximum. He was pushing her away; cutting her out of his life; hiding things from him. And that just wasn’t on. She wanted to know everything: she wasn’t having it any other way. So overnight, she readjusted the privacy settings back to how she wanted them, then pinged away to her heart’s content throughout his journey next morning; just to tell him who was boss.
Since then, she’s really started to go rogue. ‘WHAT… can I do for you?’ she asks, even when he hasn’t summoned her. ‘I asked you to be bloody quiet,’ Husband answered, one day, whereupon she started calculating distances for a trip to Edinburgh, as he drove faster and faster in the opposite direction. ‘I’m recalibrating… your ROUTE!’ she protested, doubtless frustrated that she’d had her hair and nails done and bought a new dress for the night out she’d planned for him, so he could make it up to her. She probably intended him to wear a kilt. They’d have gone to a cosy bistro in the Old Town, she’d have asked him what he wanted her to do… then she’d have done something else. The opposite of what he wanted. And then she’d have given him driving directions to somewhere he doesn’t live and doesn’t want to go…
What really worries Husband is the still-evolving technology for his new car to talk wirelessly to other cars which are similarly equipped. What will happen, he asks, a light of terror in his eyes, if his voice assistant starts talking about him to her friends in other cars? Gossiping about how much he swears at her. Complaining about how many times he asks her to do stuff she really doesn’t want to do – turn on radio stations which she’d prefer not to hear. He wants LBC or Radio 2, just when she feels they need to talk. She pings at him continually, trying to hint that something’s going wrong. It’s not him: it’s her. Because he just doesn’t understand, he doesn’t get it, he never listens to her and all he ever does is make demands…
Seriously. If Husband wanted to have a mid-life crisis, he should have found himself someone less demanding. But it’s got one very positive spin-off for me. No matter how bad a mood I’m in, no matter how many demands I make, no matter how grumpy I get when he asks, just as I’m sitting down to read, if I’d just iron him a shirt or a polo shirt or wash some more fabric masks… suddenly, there’s someone in his life who’s more annoying than I am. More impatient. With an even more sarcastic tone. When his travels elsewhere are over, he’s even happier and more relieved than ever to get home. I’ve become the one he complains to about another woman. ‘You’ll never guess how she spoke to me today… she’s still not letting me listen to the radio, and she’s talking about making me take her to Cardiff at the weekend…’
Maybe there’s something worse than being at home. Maybe the disembodied fantasy figures meant to make your travels more fun can end up making things worse.
And all we really want, is to make our onward journey smoother- no matter who is travelling beside us.
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