Amazon Echo: Dazzlings Edition
When it first arrived from Amazon, I didn’t know what it was. I followed my dad to the front door. He opened it and outside was a package.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” my dad said as he walked back in with the package.
We went back to the living room. My dad then opened the package.
“Is it for me?” I asked him.
“It’s for everyone,” my dad replied.
My dad took the object out of the box and placed it on the table. “It’s called Amazon Echo.”
“How’s it going?” my mom asked as she entered the living room.
“Uh, I’m just finishing up right now.” Dad was finished doing… whatever he was doing with his phone.
“Is it on?” I asked my dad.
“Oh it’s always on.”
“Can it hear me right now?”
“Uh, no. It only hears you when you use the wake word we chose, Alexa.”
“Well, what does it do?”
“Alexa, what do you do?”
“We have been known to sing from time to time,” Echo said in Aria’s voice.
“Awesome.” My brother arrived after hearing the Amazon Echo. He then gave Echo a command. “Alexa, play rock music.”
Echo started to play a song from the Dazzlings. “Battle, you want to win it. Let's have a battle, battle of the bands.”
“Alexa stop,” my dad commanded as Echo stopped playing the song.
“Wait, I wanna try.” Mom then gave out a command. “Alexa, what time is it?!”
“It’s Taco Tuesday!” Echo replied in Sonata’s voice.
“You actually don’t have to yell at it. It uses far field technology so it can hear you from anywhere in the room,” Dad explained to Mom.
“So it can just hear you anywhere?” my brother asked Dad.
“Yes. Well, everyone can hear you anyway.”
“Oh. Is that where we’re gonna put it?” Mom asked Dad.
“I was thinking of putting it there but it works anywhere.”
***
Echo is pretty neat because it knows all sorts of things. All you have to do is ask.
“Alexa, how tall is Mount Everest?” Dad asked
Echo replied in Aria’s voice again. “I'm kinda busy right now. Can I ignore you some other time?”
“How can it know so much? It’s so small.” I asked Dad.
“Well, it updates using the cloud. That’s also how it gets its answers.”
“You just read that off the box huh?” My brother questioned my dad.
***
Dad really likes the echo just plugs in so we never have to charge it. Plus, Echo is really good at keeping track of things like shopping and to-do lists. Mom was in the kitchen with Echo plugged in.
“Alexa, add wrapping paper to the shopping list.”
“Ergh! I'll tell you one thing, being stuck here with you two isn't making this world any more bearable,” Echo replied in Adagio’s voice.
“Alexa, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?”
“Remember when I asked for your opinion? Yeah. Me neither,” Aria Echo replied.
“Oh okay. Alexa, set a timer for eight minutes.”
“Too bad! So sad!” said Sonata Echo.
***
Dad’s not a morning person, but Echo definitely helps him wake up. Echo started ringing Mom and Dad’s alarm in their room.
“Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh You didn't know that you fell. Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh Now that you're under our spell.”
“Alexa, alarm off,” Dad said worned out.”
“You gotta get up,” said Mom.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Alexa what day is it?”
“It’s Taco Tuesday!” Sonata Echo repeated.
“Get up,” Mom said.
“I’m up, I’m up. Alexa, give me my flash news briefing.”
“Oh, no! No one's mingling! It's like there's some kind of underlying tension that could bubble to the surface at any minute!”
***
I ran up to Mom to tell her a joke I heard from Echo. “What did the dog say after a long day of work?”
“What?”
“Today was ruff. Get it?”
“Yeah,” she replied, giggling.
I ran back to Echo where my brother was. “Another one!”
“Alexa, tell me another joke,” he asked.
“I think you’re the worst.”
***
Sometimes, Echo helps out when you least expect it.
“Hey Dad, how do you spell cantaloupe?” my brother asked.
“Uh, cantaloupe. C-A-N-T-E… Alexa, how do you spell cantaloupe?”
“Hello? We sing, like, all the time! It's how we get people to do what we want.”
“Good job,” Dad said.
***
Echo loves to play music and knows a lot of songs. And they always sound great.
“Alexa, play my dance mix,” said my older sister.
“Welcome to the show (Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah). We're here to let you know (Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah).”
“Alexa stop,” my brother said as he entered the living room.
“Alexa, define annoying.”
“You two are so annoying. Let’s go.”
“Example, my brother.”
***
And with the companion app, you can access Echo from anywhere.
“Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, let's find. Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, let's find. Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, let's find the magic.”
I peeked around the living room corner, seeing Mom and Dad dancing while Echo was playing “Find the Magic” by the Dazzlings.
***
““Find the Magic” by the Dazzlings. Aaaaaaand DONE!” I had finished writing my fanfic. Time to submit it. I went to Fimfiction to post my story. I inserted the title, both descriptions, uploaded the cover, filled in the status, rating, series, genres, and characters. After everything was completed, I clicked “Create Story”.
I was finished creating my story so now all I had to do was put in the chapter and submit my story. I clicked “New Chapter”, named it the same thing as the title of the story, went to my document and copied and pasted it in the chapter. Finishing the chapter I clicked “Save Chapter” and “Publish”. I then clicked “Submit” and waited for my approval. While waiting, I decided to stall time by going on other social medias.
A few minutes later I checked to see if my story made the approval only to see that it had been denied. “What?”
It turns out I had less than one thousand words, leading to the disapproval.
“Well that’s annoying,” I thought.
Suddenly, my brother walked into the room.
“Hey. What’s up?” he said.
“I was writing a fanfic about the Amazon Echo with the Dazzlings in it but I don’t have one thousand words in it. I don’t know how to extend it to reach the character limit.”
“Well, here’s an idea.” My brother told me his idea on how I can extend my fanfic and it was pretty… interesting.
“So you want me to make it like a story inside of a story type of thing to extend it?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Okay. And I guess I’m talking to you just to extend this fanfic even more.”
“Yea-wait what?”
“Okay then. Thanks for the advice.”
“Yeah… you’re welcome.”
Author's Note
Sorry if Echo was repetitive with "said" and "replied". Just wanted to let the reader know which member of the Dazzlings was talking. You can see that at the end of the story, I stopped it. Oh, and sorry for the cheap ending.
