This book started as a joke I texted at 4 in the morning. I had just stepped out of a donut shop, saw the moon, and texted a friend:
“Have you ever looked at the moon and wondered if Osama Bin Laden looked at the same moon as you?”
They replied, “What the fuck is wrong with you lmao.”
From there, it spiraled. I started sending my friends the most deranged sentences I could come up with. Somewhere in that chaos, My Roomba Joined ISIS and Took the Kids was born. The title made people laugh. Then it made me wonder if I could actually write the thing.
So I did.
What started as absurdity turned into a full book. One part domestic meltdown, one part haunted robot uprising, and all parts unhinged. It’s not about the war on terror or even really about the Roomba. It’s about the people who fall apart quietly while everyone’s too distracted arguing over the headline.
The sneak peek you’re getting here is raw. No context. No setup. Just a taste of the energy:
My son drew a comic panel of Zippy with a sword, leading an army of vacuums against a castle labeled “Infidels.” I asked him where he learned that word. He and his sister just blinked at me, their eyes wide and unblinking.
I tried to reset it. Held down the button. Nothing happened. No restart. No error message. It just beeped once, backed away slightly, and continued cleaning around my feet like I was an irrelevant piece of furniture.
By the end of that week, the following undeniably bizarre things were happening:
One, Zippy refused to enter the kitchen during breakfast.
Two, it vacuumed around any dropped pork product, but never over it.
Three, it started playing weird chanting music from my Bluetooth speaker when no device was connected.
And four, I woke up to find it facing east in the living room, with a tiny, woven prayer rug underneath it that I absolutely did not own.
This thing drops June 30.
Until then, I suggest hiding your smart appliances and double-checking your baby monitor. Just in case.