How did you learn to clean the house? Bill Ervolino learned the hard way

For years, the Vancouver-based company Sanctuary AI (also known as Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corp.) has been on a mission to provide the world with safe, affordable “general purpose robots” designed to help us with assorted day-to-day household chores.

Yes. They even do windows.

Just like Rosie on “The Jetsons.”

Last summer, Sanctuary got the ball rolling with Phoenix, a humanoid robot that is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 155 pounds.

In an October interview with Time magazine, which chose Phoenix as one of the best inventions of 2023, Sanctuary AI’s founder and CEO noted that company’s goal was to provide household robots capable of “doing any work that people can do.”

Well, almost.

Apparently, Phoenix has a problem opening plastic bags.

As another Sanctuary AI spokesman recently told BBC News, the manipulation of plastic bags is “very, very hard for robots … because bags are floppy, they’re transparent” and because determining where they open can be challenging.

Hey, no kidding.

Last week, in the produce department at my neighborhood Stop & Shop, I saw a man trying to open one of those little greenish plastic bags that drive us all crazy.

I’ve seen this gentleman many times before, so I finally went up to him and asked, “How long have you been trying to open that bag?”

He sighed wearily and told me, “Since last Tuesday.”

I asked if he had tried moistening his thumb and index finger.

“About two thousand times,” he said.

I asked if he was a robot, and he said, “No.”

He may have been lying, though.

Incidentally, don’t you love it when you’re at home, web-surfing, and are asked “Are you a robot?”

BY YOUR COMPUTER!

It always reminds me of the time I came home and found my coffeemaker in the middle of a noisy argument with my immersion blender.

As for the rise of Phoenix: I find it interesting that there is now a household robot on the market at a time when I have sudden taken an interest in — are you sitting down? — cleaning my house.

Myself. With my own two hands.

For years — decades, really — I’ve watched other people vacuum my carpets, Windex my windows and spatter Comet all over my tile and porcelain surfaces.

I am what you might call a typical Italian man. I was raised to live in clean, tidy surroundings.

But I was not taught how to keep those surroundings clean or tidy, since, back in the day, Italian men were prohibited from doing such things.

(Do you remember that scene in “Saturday Night Fever” when John Travolta tries to help his mother clear the dinner table and his father smacks him in the head?)

I moved out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment when I was 21, and one of the first household chores I did was mop my new kitchen floor.

Easy, right?

Thirty minutes later, I called home and asked my mother why, after I finished the mopping, dirt and hair had collected on my baseboards.

“Well, how did you clean the floor first,” she asked. “Did you sweep it or vacuum?”

Uh …

Alas, no one taught me how to clean and mop a floor. Or how to clean an oven. Or, worse, how to clean a toilet bowl — the outside, the inside, above the seat, below the seat, up the sides …

Have you ever cleaned a toilet? It takes months.

Because of this, I found myself employing a series of kindly cleaning ladies who stopped by on Saturday mornings to tend to my filth.

These women were like mothers to me. I liked them. I trusted them. And I was more than happy to leave the premises while they cleaned so I wouldn’t get in their way or inhale any of the deadly chemical fumes they worked with.

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Not too long ago, my most recent cleaning lady retired. So did I! And I have since found myself with more time to putter around the house, noticing things I never noticed before.

Last week, I cleaned some smudges off the refrigerator door, removed the oily buildup on my wooden banister and cleaned the dark-gold curtain in my kitchen which, when soaked in soapy water, turned out to be white.

A few days ago, I purchased an electric spin scrubber (with a telescopic rod) which allowed me to clean “difficult surfaces” without too much bending or crawling.

I’ve used it on floors, cabinets and tile work.

I also invested in some organic cleansers, which remove stains without making you cry or hyperventilate.

It had been a long time since I’d done any of this stuff, but I truly believe that cleaning gives you a sense of accomplishment. And self-worth.

And, it keeps you occupied!

So what do I need a robot for? I can open my own plastic bags.

Besides, who is going to clean the robot?

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bill Ervolino learns how to clean his home without using robots