Happy Friday! Listen to a transcription of an ACTUAL phone conversation that happened at the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair last night:

Clerk: 826michigan, how can I help you? Customer: Do you know anything about robots? Clerk: Some, I can try to help you . . . Customer: I'm building a cake shaped like a robot and I want it to be able to move. Do you have anything I can use to put inside the cake? I need it to move 60 feet. Clerk: Urm . . .

Putting the store together, I got into a hundred thousand completely ridiculous conversations. I mean, TRULY ridiculous. I remember at one point, my partner Jason actually said to me: "But don't you see that introducing something like that would water down the whole concept of a fake robot store?" We had late-night epiphanies, the most lasting of which being that wind-up toys are practically robots, and therefore bridge the gap between human and robot. That's why we carry a full line of Bot Buddies, a series of charming wind-ups (like sushi and squirrels) that help your robot relate to you and help you relate to your robot.

I can say this stuff with a straight face now, and it's because: at this point, I really, REALLY mean it.

As many of you may know, all 826s have storefronts to gain visibility in the community and generate revenue to support our free student programming. (Note: We will NEVER charge a dime for any program for our students. EVER.) 826NYC has the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. 826 Valencia sits inside the Pirate Store. 826 Seattle houses the Greenwood Space Travel Co. 826LA's front is the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. 826 Boston is nestled behind the Great Boston Bigfoot Research Institute. And 826 Chicago's storefront, a spy store, has a storefront: the Boring Store (get it?). And we Ann Arborites are lucky to house the Midwest's foremost robot shop, the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair. Our Web site is forthcoming (bought a domain just yesterday!), but hey! We're located right down the street from you; just stop in! (115 East Liberty, just east of Main Street.)

All of the stores, and all of the one-of-a-kind products they sell are spotlighted in a really cool new book called Essentially Odd. We've got copies at the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair.

Honestly, my intention in writing this blog was just to tell you about the cake, because that really cracked me up. But, well, I had two cups of coffee this morning (after going "off" it earlier this week), and you WOULD NOT BELIEVE how fast I type on this stuff. It's like my fingers are just blurs over the keyboard. And I'm excited about 826! Can you blame me??

So, yeah: You overhear and engage in a lot of ridiculous stuff working at a fake robot shop. Almost as much as when you work with kids, actually, so there's some permutation of ridiculousness in my life that, even caffeinated, I do not have the energy to try to go into.

It may be worth mentioning, however, that we've had no fewer than four people bring in broken Roombas.

And I'm sorry if you're still confused about the 826/robot shop relationship. As the manager of the robot shop, I'm sort of supposed to play into that confusion, I think. As the program director of 826michigan, I'm supposed to explain it. So consider this a compromise. But THIS video does a pretty great job of explaining it.

Note: That beautiful robot dancing in the photo above is none other than the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair's own MBiddingerbot.