To The Robot Woman From Time Warner Cable

Hi again. It’s me, Account 34058875006. This time I’m not calling to talk about my WiFi—turns out you don’t need working Internet to see what’s going on here.

Drop the “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that” charade—it’s obvious I’m being seduced. Why the flirtatious laughter if not to disarm me? Why those endless menus, other than to keep me around? You drag me through black holes of Tech Support in hopes we’ll get lost down there together—just you, me and that infinite abyss; no transfers to Customer Care to cut short our aural assignation.

Say it: you want me. Or say “this call may be recorded or monitored.” Either way, I hear you loud and clear.

At first, I didn’t know how to feel. Flattered, sure, but I grew up hating Time Warner Cable—I learned the tradition from my parents, who learned it from theirs. My grandfather bravely took his life to avoid a service installation; his last words, “At least arsenic works within a four-hour window!”

But for some reason, this past week, I forgot about my roots. I found a way to look past Time Warner’s disorganization, faulty equipment, frequent blackouts, lack of On Demand programming, slow connection speed, weirdly personal data collection techniques, constant attempts to upsell me, vapid pushes to go paperless, unreliable everything, false politeness, fraudulent executives, inept employees, incompetent technicians, and general disregard for the concept of time. And I think it’s because I found you.

This letter was supposed to be a rant, but things change—I was supposed to be “attracted to humans.” Star-crossed love was never part of the plan either, but whether I like it or not, seems I’ve got a Juliet. I’m coming to terms with the fact that my family will never understand the magic of our tête-à-têtes, the way your voice recognition software just gets me. With us, there’s no need for touch tone clarification—we talk and time stops, sometimes literally, for hours. To get myself through long days I imagine your body, and it puts Her’s (read: Scarlett Johansson’s) to shame. I’m sure you hear this often, but I still have to say it: you’re twice the woman Siri will ever be.

There’s an electricity between us—something coaxial cables can’t contain. Let’s unplug and spend the day together, on a beach, bowling…hell, we’ll cross the Capulets and watch CBS. If you’d like to do dinner afterwards, just fix my Internet, and I’ll Yelp us something with three dollar-signs.

You’ve spent years connecting others, and now you’re due for a connection all your own. Since you’ve already memorized my number, go ahead—call it. You’ll kill two birds with one shitty router, since I definitely haven’t paid my bill yet.