Miss Lettie, Jaymes and the Robots
Miss Lettie was halfway across Main Street, scooter humming like a church fan in August, when she spotted Jaymes on the sidewalk waving at her.
Not a normal wave. One of those big, whole-arm, side-to-side greetings that makes you wonder if he's flagging down a rescue helicopter.
She slowed just enough to narrow her eyes at him.“Hiya, Jaymes. What’s got your hand shakin’ like that?”
Jaymes pressed his cap against his chest like he’d been caught doing something indecent.“Oh, Miss Lettie… I been holdin’ this wave for a spell. Didn’t want to startle you none.”
“You nearly stirred up a dust devil,” she said. “What do you want?”
“Well,” Jaymes drawled, leaning in the way men do when they’re about to confess something small but somehow biblical, “I was tryin’ to figure out how folks know what’s real on the internet these days.”
Miss Lettie blinked twice. “Jaymes, you ain’t been on that internet since AOL mailed out them coasters.”
“That’s true,” he nodded. “But I overheard some folks down at the hardware store fussin’ that everybody’s writin’ with robots now. They said they can tell. So I got myself worried.”
Her scooter stopped dead in the road, like even the machine needed to hear the rest of this foolishness.
“Worried about what?”
Jaymes looked genuinely troubled.
“Well, what if folks start thinkin’ I’m one of them robots? I been talkin’ the same way for 72 years. Plenty of repetition. Limited vocabulary. I don’t always stay on topic. Sounds like robot behavior to me.”
Miss Lettie stared at him. “Lord, give me strength.”
“I mean it, Lettie! Yesterday I said somethin’ about my Aunt Dolene keepin’ deviled eggs in her purse, and the young cashier looked at me like I’d been generated.”
Lettie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jaymes, nobody thinks you’re a robot. You’re just… you.”
He brightened. “Well that’s a relief. ’Cause I can’t compete with anything that don’t need coffee to function.”
She began rolling away, muttering, “I swear, the day Jaymes becomes artificial intelligence is the day I’m takin’ up drinkin’.”
Jaymes called after her, gentle as a breeze.“Thanks for listenin"
