The Vacuum With a Mind of Its Own
A free A2-level English story for language learners, readable online in 7 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
Nate's robot vacuum starts cleaning at three in the morning until he finds the scheduling mistake he made.
That was the preview! Hear the full story in the free Storyteller app. Get the app
Audio isn't available right now.
Nate bought a robot vacuum for his apartment last month. He set it to clean every day.
For the first two weeks, everything worked well. The vacuum cleaned in the afternoon while Nate was at work.
Then, one night, Nate woke up at three in the morning. He heard a strange humming sound.
He walked into the living room. The robot vacuum moved across the floor. It cleaned loudly.
Nate turned it off and went back to bed, confused. The same thing happened the next night, and the night after that.
The next morning, Nate opened the vacuum's app on his phone. He looked at the cleaning schedule.
The schedule said "3:00 AM" every day. Nate never set that time.
He checked the settings carefully. He saw a small mistake. He picked "AM" instead of "PM" when he first set it up.
Nate laughed at his own mistake. He changed the time to three in the afternoon.
That night, the apartment stayed quiet. The vacuum cleaned the next afternoon, at the right time.
Nate never woke up to the sound of cleaning again.
