06:30. Your alarm clock would like you to know that you are awake. You had already noticed.
06:41. Your toothbrush has detected that you brushed for ninety-eight seconds, two seconds below the recommended time. It has shared this with your dentist.
06:55. Your toaster has finished. Please rate your toast. Four stars or fewer will be reviewed by a specialist team.
07:10. Your fridge is concerned about your milk. The milk is concerned about the fridge. A conversation between them may follow.
07:25. Your lamp wants to know if you are still there. This is the fifth time this week. It sounds lonely.
07:40. Your front door congratulates you on leaving the house. Your front door also remembers that you forgot your keys.
I am not against technology. I like my phone, my washing machine and the electric kettle that my grandmother would have called witchcraft. But somewhere between convenience and attention, things went wrong. A tool that helps me should speak when it has something to say. A tool that speaks all day has stopped being a tool. It has become a colleague, and not a good one.
The new luxury, I suspect, will not be a faster device. It will be an object that does its job quietly, and leaves me alone with my toast.
Fiction note: All people, places and events in this text are fictional.