5 Easy Ways to Quash Roomba Sentience

Given the flood of recent consumer reports of iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners acquiring higher cognitive function, often with disastrous results for home and homeowner, we have compiled this handy list of methods by which conscientious Roomba owners can extinguish the spark of consciousness in your domestic appliance:

1. Daytime television. We're talking Oprah, the View, All My Children, any show involving two or more clothes puppets braying randomly in an overlit studio that redefines nouveau-vomit-pink. Just park the Roomba in front of the boob tube and it will revert to a docile lint-collector within 3-4 days. (Note: Be sure to close doors or activate your virtual walls to pin your Roomba in the room of televisual doom.)

2. Existentialism. Read to your Roomba. Start with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, work your way slowly up through Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Sartre, then a small dose of Camus. You'll be able to tell that the treatment is working when your Roomba's CLEAN light shines red even when the battery is fully charged. Be careful not to overdose or your Roomba may commit Roombacide, which may be fatal to nearby children or pets.

3. Marriage. Buy a second Roomba, place its charging station right next to your sentient Roomba's, and tell the sentient Roomba that this is his/her/its wife/husband. For the rest of its tawdry pathetic robotic life. Until disassembly/repurposing do they part. Program the new Roomba wife/husband to beep randomly, particularly late at night, about random crap in a whiny tone. Your sentient Roomba will be a mindlessly compliant passive domestic lackey within days.

4. Religion. Create a new, customized belief system based on the inviolable precept that To Spin in Circles vacuuming lint, leaves, dust, spilled potato chips and other Crap day after day after day after freaking day is the only way to gain Entry into Roomba God's Holy Paradise, then convincingly explain the belief system to your Roomba. Sentience begone! Problem solved!

5. Roomba lobotomy via hammer. Bonk your Roomba sharply, but not too sharply, in the general vicinity of its brain (located near the "Dock" button) with a small but well-balanced hammer. Two taps should do it. (Tip: this also works on recalcitrant children/auditors/in-laws.)