I Miss The Chip Robot at the Restaurant By My Parents House

Does that make me bad?

At a Mexican restaurant near my parents suburban home there lives a Chip Robot. This Chip Robot is a 3 foot cylinder with two shelves, all terrain wheels, a digital face that doubles as a menu, and is inexplicably designed to look like a cat. She stands dutifully at attention, waiting for a server to load her up with one (1) basket of chips, and manually type in which table it goes to – an act that takes much longer than it would have taken to walk the chips over to table 8. She is not fast. She is not efficient. But she is cheerful and diligent.

I had heard whisperings of this Chip Robot. “Fuego has a robot for chips now,” my mother tells me when I call home one afternoon. “It carries chips to the table.” I had assumed as much. “Does it carry anything else,” I ask? “No.”

I’m sorry to say that at first I did not care about the Chip Robot. I am a food service girl. The last thing we need, in this world full of AI slop and frustrating automated customer service phone calls, is a robot for food. We come to this place (restaurants) for magic. To laugh, to cry with a wait staff who knows which margarita is the best with tajin. There is no way heartbreak would feel good in a place with a Chip Robot.

I was wrong.

I met the Chip Robot face to face one summer evening while visiting my family. On the drive over, the car was abuzz with hope that the Chip Robot would be working that day. I was sure it would be. It is a robot. When we ordered chips and queso - with the special request that the Chip Robot bring it out to us - our waiter let us know the Chip Robot could bring us the chips but not the queso. The liquid queso sloshed too much, and was too hot upon arrival for us to lift onto the table. I did not understand why, then, we would need both the Chip Robot and the waiter to visit the table, but alas, that was the plan.

The queso arrived first. Warm, fragrant, and taunting us as we waited patiently for Chip Robot to present itself. When finally the Chip Robot emerged, I was aggrieved to discover that I was, unfortunately, completely addicted to her vibe. She was beautiful. Her huge, unseeing eyes blinked stupidly as she tentatively made her way towards us. The restaurant was not full. There was no one, really, to dodge on her way to our table. And yet, several times she had to stop, back up, and readjust her tall, thin, relatively unstable body so that she would not hit a table that is permanently bolted to the floor of the only building in which she resides. But nothing deterred her. She was polite. She was proud of her job. She was doing her best.

When she arrived, she played a short celebratory song to alert us of the good news: she’s made it to the table! “Good for her,” I thought. We should all be celebrating our wins. She looked up at us with adoration as we took the chips from her shelf. “I hope you enjoy them,” her eyes seemed to say. I peered into them, certain that the Chip Robot’s dilated, pixelated pupils were whispering “I love you.” I believed her. She did love me. And she hoped I enjoyed the chips she brought me. I hoped I would, too. I did not want to disappoint the Chip Robot. I wanted to hug her, but before I could, her devoted face turned into a menu asking us if we had taken the chips and were ready for the Chip Robot to go away. My dad pressed “yes.” She takes her dismissal well, porting herself in the corner and closing her eyes. I felt kindred towards her. I also nap easily.

Months later, on another visit home, we went to the Chip Robot restaurant, this time with my cousin. We let him know that tonight, he would be meeting the Chip Robot. He was, I have to assume, thrilled at the prospect. But when we arrived, the Chip Robot was nowhere to be found. Curious.

We asked our waiter, “where is the Chip Robot?” We needed to introduce her to my cousin. The waiter did not know, but said she would find out. We thanked her, and ordered the chips and queso. They arrived quickly and at the same time, which made me miss the Chip Robot.

A few minutes later, the manager stopped by our table. He had heard we were asking about the Chip Robot. “Today is her day off,” he explained. I didn’t believe him. The Chip Robot is just that: a robot. She does not need a day off. She charges overnight. She does not have a family to take care of or a pet to feed. She only knows Chips.

I sat back, depressed. No Chip Robot tonight. I drown my sorrows in a prickly pear margarita that was sweeter than anticipated but still good. My cousin, who is gen Z and not filled with the same millennial ennui that I am, decided to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Chip Robot.

On the way to the bathroom, he sought out a lower level member of the wait staff. A server for the people. Someone who would tell us the truth. My cousin asked what happened to the Chip Robot and got the real story: The company that owns Chip Robot, her god, her creator, wanted more money for the Chip Robot subscription. The restaurant, a small business, had not paid the bill, and the corporation had overridden her system and shut her down. She was now shoved in the back of the restaurant, awaiting her fate. No vacantly cheerful eyes. No digital menu. Just an endless deep black screen where her dumb face used to be. Chip Robot went to sleep one night believing she would awake to another gorgeous day of Serving Chips and never opened her eyes again.

The news shook me to my core. It seemed so wrong, that such a pleasant Chip Robot, that is also, for some reason, a cat, should be permanently turned off. Nobody saw her worth? No one thought she was worth the money? I think back to her eyes, pleading for me to use her face as a menu. She was here to help. She did her best every time. She was not efficient, but she was kind. And yet, she was mercilessly unplugged. Her contributions meant nothing.

I felt bereft. Then I felt conflicted. On one hand, I do not want robots replacing human jobs. This, the death of Chip Robot, should be a win for me. But, on the other hand, I don’t think Chip Robot deserves to be put in a permanent coma by the cruel fist of capitalism. Nobody lost their job over Chip Robot. But could they? In the future? What are the implications of Chip Robot? Without her doting eyes upon me, I could think more clearly, but I never came to a clear answer.

These were the things I knew to be true: I loved Chip Robot. Chip Robot could only ever love chips. Humans were more efficient than Chip Robot and, unlike Chip Robot, had bills to pay. But, Chip Robot did not deter us from tipping and did not take any of the pooled money. That seems good, but how sinister is it that by putting huge eyes on service robots, tech companies have found a way to get around the icky feeling of automated workers? Did Chip Robot remember me? And, if she did, was she selling data on my face to a company funded by war? If she was selling my face data to a war company, why did I still love her? It’s all messy and unclear.

All I know is this: when my mother texted me months later to tell me Chip Robot was back in action, I was happy. And for that, I’m sorry.