Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode!

Professor Quibble was an inventor, but not a very good one. His greatest creation was a vacuum cleaner named Vinnie. Vinnie was programmed with state-of-the-art AI, but Professor Quibble accidentally wired the 'Performance Mode' to an old theatre script he'd found. The result? Vinnie cleaned, but only with extreme dramatic flair.

Vinnie wouldn't just glide across the floor. He'd sweep into the room and stop, the whirring of his motor a theatrical sigh. "Oh, cruel, cruel dust!" Vinnie would lament, his mechanical voice booming through the mansion. "You plague my existence! Must I forever chase your tiny, fleeting shadows?"

The professor's house cat, Mittens, usually napped peacefully, but Vinnie's routines made napping impossible. Mittens would watch, annoyed, as Vinnie approached a dust bunny.

"Behold!" Vinnie would cry, his suction power reaching its peak. "The villain of this tragic tale! I shall consume you! Not with malice, but with a weary sense of duty!" And WHOOSH, the dust bunny was gone.

One afternoon, Professor Quibble dropped his keys behind the sofa. "Vinnie, old friend, could you just retrieve my keys? They're right there."

Vinnie rolled to the spot and dramatically paused. "The shadows lengthen..." he whispered, his red light flashing ominously. "The object of desire lies beyond the velvet precipice! I must brave the unknown... the cushion-covered abyss!"

Mittens, who was tired of the theatrics, saw her chance. She quietly batted one of the keys just out of Vinnie's reach.

Vinnie saw the key move. He let out a mechanical wail of despair. "Alas! Fate itself conspires against me! The prize slips through my grasp! I am but a hollow shell of a cleaning appliance!"

He began to recite a long, rambling monologue about the futility of cleaning, until Professor Quibble, laughing heartily, simply reached behind the sofa himself.

"Vinnie, my boy," the professor said, patting the top of the machine. "Maybe just a little less drama next time, eh?"

Vinnie's motor sputtered. "As you wish, my Lord," he replied in a deep, booming baritone. "The show... must go on." And with a final, unnecessary bow, Vinnie zoomed off to dramatically chase a stray potato chip under the dining room table.