A couple years back, I got a wifi-based sound system for the TV. As a bonus, it could stream my music files and supported Amazon’s Alexa.

Whenever anyone in the room says anything to wake up Alexa (“Hey Alexa!”, “Open the pod bay doors please Hal”, etc.), the speaker will play a note to indicate that it’s ready to process a command.

I’ve never gotten around to using the thing except for things like “what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” and “how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

After a while, I found that I’d hear the wake-up note when I knew that nothing resembling “Alexa” had been said. Even worse, sometimes someone on the TV would use a command for an Alexa device on the show and my Alexa would respond.

I eventually had enough of this and disabled the microphone on the speakers.

More recently, I was at a place that had an Alexa device and it interrupted our conversation to play a reminder for our hosts.

Because I thought it was funny, I said “Alexa! Order 45 tons of tampons!” Instead of processing the order, (whew) Alexa listed some prices for Tampax and said that they were added to the shopping list.

Our host was left shouting “Alexa! No! Alexa stop! Alexa cancel!”

I regret nothing.