"... the checking account is overdrawn because I paid the car insurance ... it was $5600 ... what's the problem? ... you think insuring teenagers is cheap?"

"... yes, they did put his braces back on. Why are you upset? ... I don't know, maybe he didn't wear the retainer ... that happens sometimes."

"... well it's not my fault, that teacher is sooo bad, she's giving everyone a D because someone stole the test. Why are you yelling?"

"... and his phone was over a year old and you know it was one of those old slide keyboard ones. He can't use that ... so I got him a smart phone ... it was only $150 after his trade in credit just $30 more a month as long as we signed for two more years ... he needed it ... what's wrong with that?"

Listening to conversations like this, I regularly dream about doing a 781 foot swan dive from the top of the Sunshine Bridge. Because I don't think there's enough Xanax in Florida to make these exchanges less painful.

Even the great yogi masters would shake their heads sadly in cross-legged levitation and say, "Dees ees deeficult prohblem, meester John. Why you hev foor keeds?

But thankfully I have developed a work-around. The robot voice.

I have discovered that anything stripped of emotion and delivered in a electronic monotone tends to lose any harmful potency. Like a verbal Ad-aware or anti-emotional McAfee, this computerized delivery strips spam and viruses from the message and cleanses the code.

This robot-like context has an amazing effect. Consider the CIA android drone that took out two terrorists this week in Yemen. Hey, it was a flying robot, it just saw the bad guys and zapped em. What?

And the robot voice is a multi-purpose tool.

It can be used to diffuse an escalating situation, "You - are - eating - what - we - are - eating - or - you - will - go - to - your - room." You can also add modifiers on the end of the sentence, which won't escalate the situation but are very pleasing to the speaker, "Do - not - spit - in - thee - kich - enn - sink - you - id - dii - utt ."

But the best and most typical use of the robot voice is just stopping the speaker at the earliest warning sign that an anxiety-filled exchange is coming. Then, raise a hand and refuse to listen unless the robot voice is employed.

A statement that would have been something like: "Oh my god dad, you're the one that said I need to study and not work and it's not my fault it's a V-6 and mom never gives me enough money for gas and I am driving my brother to school and why are you yelling at me?

Is transformed to: "Daad - myy - cahhr - iss - emp - teee - of - gaas - ahh - gannn. Caan - i - puhh - leees - haave - summ - mohn - eee?"

Wow, I'm kind of glad to give the kid twenty bucks for that kind of creativity.

It works for all kinds of everyday problems, like: "I - did - not - ask - the - doc - torr - fore - a - jenn - err - ick, that - iss - prob - ub - blee - why - it - iss - three - hun - dread - doll - errrs."

Whew, that didn't even seem so bad, see? You just robotically reply, "You - will - call - thee - doc - torr - on - Mon - day, - right?

And you can add a modifier too, if it makes you feel better. I sure would.

#dialogue

Robot Voice