Everyone Died+My iPhone Stopped Working: An Oral History of The Robot Apocalypse

The Vera Wang of Altruism

Dougal Latham, Refugee

My Mom and Dad survived.

But Dr. Gordon, my reparative "therapist" didn't. And when they found his body — guess what? — he was wearing women's underwear! It was pink and frilly and crotchless! LOL.

It's totally true!

OK, it's totally not. But I thought it would be fun to start that rumor. LOL.

Anyway, here's what I learned about the Robot Apocalypse: It's a great time to come out to your God-fearing, Midwestern religious nutcase parents.

It went like this.

"Dougal! My precious baby boy! You're alive!"

"Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for sparing our son!"

"I'm super-gay!"

They didn't care. Mom hugged me tight, weeping joyful tears and stroking my hair. Dad gave me a hearty handshake and didn't even wipe his palm on his shirt afterward like he usually did.

It was amazing!

Then, when we got to the refugee camp, we learned the truly awful news. Not only were they rationing toilet paper but the only Taylor Swift album they had was from her country music days!

Barf!

LOL! I'm kidding! I mean, yeah, that was the only Taylor Swift album they had (retch!) but that obviously wasn't the truly awful news. The overwhelming majority of humans had been wiped out by the robots. And more were being wiped out on a daily basis.

We were all very sad. But we also appreciated our good fortune. At least we had each other.

Over the next few weeks, the three of us grew very close. Tragedy will do that. Mom and Dad were even accepting of Chad, although they insisted on calling him my "special friend" which was kind of adorable, actually. They were really trying.

But old habits die hard.

One day, out of nowhere, my parents said they wanted to have a Serious Talk with me. Nothing good ever follows a Serious Talk. It never ends with cash gifts or theater tickets or a surprise visit from an oiled-up Ryan Gosling.

"Dougal, you know we've made our peace with your decision to flaunt the rules of God and nature."

"We're one hundred percent OK with it."

I sensed there was a but coming. And not the fun kind with two T's. LOL.

"But... there are more important things that need to be dealt with."

"Such as?"

"The species."

W.

T.

F?!

"Um... what about the species?"

"The species is in trouble."

"It needs to be repopulated."

"You need to help repopulate the species, Dougal."

"Me?!"

"Yes, you, young man!"

"The species isn't going to repopulate itself!"

"Will you help repopulate that species, Dougal?"

First of all: no.

Second of all: God, no. LOL.

But they kept at me.

"You care about the species, don't you, Dougal?"

"Well... sure, but—"

"You want the species to survive, don't you Dougal?"

"Well... yeah, but—"

"Then you need to help repopulate the species!"

"We'd do it, but your mother and I are too old for species repopulation."

So two very disturbing images appeared in my mind at the same time. Me having sex with a woman and my parents having sex with each other.

Yuck yuck yuck.

And also, yuck.

"Um... have you forgotten? I'm with someone."

"You know we're very fond of your special friend but... you can't exactly repopulate the species together, can you?"

They shrugged with upturned palms and these big, fake grimaces on their faces, like they felt absolutely terrible about the whole thing.

You've got to hand it to my parents. This was a genius argument. Dressing up their ugly homophobia in the Vera Wang of altruism. But as weird as it sounds, they did have a point. The human race was endangered.

But I still didn't want to do it and I thought I had found the perfect loophole.

"Mom, Dad, I would love to repopulate the species, I really would, but honestly, what would woman would want me?" I shrugged with upturned palms and a big, fake grimace on my face.

And here is where I really understood that my parents were evil geniuses. They were playing three-dimensional chess and I was playing with an Easy-Bake Oven.

Because they had already found a woman for me!

When I heard that, I went nuts. We're talking the full Cyrus. I was screaming at my parents.

"You did what? That's insane! You can't just go behind my back to find a woman for me to f—" Even at the height of my anger, I couldn't bring myself to curse in front of my parents. "—repopulate with!"

"Do you want to know who it is, at least?"

"No, Mom! I don't care who it is! You are terrible parents! You're not even parents anymore! You're just pimps! Vera Wang repopulation pimps!"

LOL.

I kept ranting and they just looked at me calmly, waiting patiently for me to run out of steam.

Finally, I ran out of steam.

"OK, fine," I said. "Who is it?"

And when they told me, I had to admit, it was actually a pretty terrific choice.

My special friend was not going to be happy about this.

(To be continued...)