"How long have you been interested in robots, Joe?" Mary Chen asked me. We had just finished our Engineering 101 class at Boston University, and were having McDonald's eighty-nine cent, three-course meal - burger, fries and a shake. We struck up a conversation before class started and learned that both of us were passionate about robotics. So the conversation continued after class, more excitedly now that we shared something few knew anything about. I suggested we stretch it into lunch.

"I've been nuts about robots since I first saw Forbidden Planet. It was a hokey movie, but it made Robby the robot famous. That was on a sleepover in the late fifties, I was little. But here in 1970, we've got the real thing in Shakey. Are you familiar with Shakey?"

"No, who is Shakey?" Her eyes seemed to follow my hands as I ate. My mother often tells me I’m a sloppy eater. I suspected Mary found this amusing.

"Shakey is a robot project they're working on at Stanford. His brain is a mainframe computer and he gets radiowaves from it that help him to figure out where he's going. I'll bring some pictures to our next class."

"Cool."

"What about you? Not many women in engineering."

"No, not many. Then you add that I'm first-generation Chinese, and that I'm interested in robots, and I’m pretty much one of a kind."

"My family is Pentecostal and they think I'm in league with the devil. It's mainly my mother who's the Scourge of God. I've had to keep my interest in robots hidden from her over the years."

"I don't get it, what's her problem with robots?"

"She thinks I'm obsessed with them, and that it's like creating a heathen god."

"So you hid your interest?"

"Yes, I would make robots at my friend's house and leave them there. I wouldn't dare bring one home. I tore apart electronic toys and tried to figure out how they worked. Dissected a lot of servo motors. I learned a few things, I suppose. But I wanted to go beyond toys. I wanted to build a serious robot."

"How did you go from Pentecostal to science major?"

"I've always been interested in science. The first thing that science refuted for me was Noah's Ark. That just makes no physical sense. As I got older, more and more things from the Bible just didn't add up. I still believe in God, I think. Well - I'm really not sure."

"You sound like an atheist in the making to me."

"There's a kind of comfort that comes with believing in God. I've had a hard time giving that up. Outside of that conflict, I'm just your garden variety yankee. I guess for you, atheism isn't an issue."

"No, not an issue at all. Atheism is the national policy of China. We have over half a billion atheists and agnostics."

"People here in America treat atheism like a swear word. It's just plain evil to most folks."

"Well, I think we're lucky to have met. Finished your shake, Yankee Joe? I think I'll call you that, if you don't mind." I was making a ridiculous amount of noise through my straw, trying to suck up every last drop. I'm always doing nerdy things, and realizing it after the fact.

"Yankee Joe? Okay, I've never had a nickname - it's kind of cool. Hey, I'll drive you to your dorm."

"Thank you."

It would be nice to live on campus, but my folks are saving money by having me commute in Mom's car. She's giving up her freedom, I have to always remind myself. I drove home and dug up the article about Shakey the robot for Mary. I wondered if she thought about robots the same way that I did. I wanted to make something that was better than humans. Something that didn't start wars or make a mess out of the world. It would be many years before that technology existed, but I could foresee it. There was always the question of sentience. Could you put a soul in a robot? Only God could do that. But did God exist? Do souls exist? If not, are we nothing more than a bunch of cooperative cells that defied impossible odds? Smart enough to sense our own predicament, but beyond that, too darned dumb to comprehend the infinite.

I saw Mary and gave her the Shakey article. She wanted me to come to her dorm, she had something to show me. Of course it was a robot! It was fantastic - the articulation in its arms was far more sophisticated than anything I had ever done. It was about four feet tall, made mostly of metal. What a mess her room was, full of tools and scrap pieces.

"Do you solder, Mary?"

"Of course, look at it. Lots of solder. Now watch it move." She pressed a button on its back and off it wheeled. Right into a wall.

"I might be able to help you with that problem. I've been experimenting with wire loops that act like feelers. They protrude out from the robot's body and sort of work like cat's whiskers."

"Is it built into a current project?"

"Well, it's kinda hard to do that, living under my mother's roof."

"We can work together, here in my dorm room."

"That'd be swell." And so we did. I showed her my ideas about collision detection. We tried them on her robot and they worked to a certain extent. Not having a mainframe hooked up like Shakey presented a lot of limitations.

I also started thinking about Mary romantically. I'm kind of a scrawny guy and unsure about how I rated, so I didn't know if she was thinking along the same lines. Maybe it was all robots for her. We spent a lot of time together and ate at McDonald's often. Once, she dipped a french fry in ketchup and popped it in my mouth. Such a little thing, but I made a big deal about it in my mind. I decided I would kiss her at the next opportunity. Normally, I would have procrastinated forever about it. After my senior prom, I left my date on her porch unsmooched, her mouth agape like a guppy. But there was something in the curious way Mary seemed to always be examining me, wondering that such a creature could exist, this nerdy, enthusiastic Boston yankee with no table manners. Somehow she found my existence a good thing, her wan expression seemed to be saying. A good thing for her.

We were adjusting the wire feelers on the robot and I thought that was a good time to risk a kiss. It turned out to be a pretty good kiss that led to many more.

"Took you long enough, Yankee Joe."

"I'm a cautious guy, I guess. We never talk about your family, are they cool with a yankee boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend, okay. Beyond that, hard to tell. My parents always say that they trust my judgment. We'll see how true that is."

"Sounds safe for now."

"What about you? Atheist for a girlfriend?"

"Big trouble with my parents."

"Well, they don't have to know, for now."

"Agreed."

I suppose I'm kind of weird for a guy. Despite never having done it before, sex was not always on my mind. It came in a distant second to science. Nonetheless, it became obvious as the semester wore on, that with all the bodily entanglement and heavy breathing we engaged in, Mary and I were going to get to know each other biblically. Her roommate went home often, so there were plenty of opportunities. We finally did it on a Friday afternoon. Friends had told me I'd be lucky to last five minutes the first time, but I can proudly say that I hung in there for twelve. Yeah, I kept my wristwatch on, in all my naked ineptitude, and checked it every few minutes. It made Mary laugh.

"That was great, Mr. Timekeeper," she said. "But can we please get back to designing robots?"

"Sounds good to me. It's so cool we were asked to write a paper on collision detection."

"I think you're the better writer. I'm going to leave it in your hands."

I thought I had done a pretty good job of keeping our relationship a secret from my parents. But they questioned me one night.

"Joseph," my mother began, "Sister Louise Emswiler from our church has a daughter that goes to BU. You know her, Esther Emswiler. She's seen you there, walking and holding hands with a Chinese girl. Normally, I'd be thrilled, Joe, but Chinese people are atheists. They said so on The 700 Club."

"How do you know she's Chinese? She might be Korean or Japanese."

"Is she?"

"No, you're right. She's Chinese."

"Some Chinese are Christians. Is she?" asked my dad.

"No."

"Well, Joseph," said my mother, "this is a serious problem. You simply cannot be friends of any kind with this girl."

"Mom, I didn't intend it. It just sorta happened."

"What you need," my dad interjected, "is to attend some of the youth group events at our church. You're sure to find a nice, Christian girl in the singles program. So there's your answer. Just give us your word you won't see this Chinese girl again and the matter's done."

"I don't know if I can do that, Dad, to be perfectly honest. It might break her heart. It might break my heart. I just don't know."

"Joseph, as your mother - who, by the way, lets you use her car to get to school every day - I can't allow this. If you will not give this girl up, I'm prepared to take some serious measures to keep you away from Satan's clutches."

"Son, your mother is serious. I'm serious, too. But we realize you may need some time to think this through. Mull it over and we'll talk again tomorrow night."

I went to bed that night and nearly cried. What could I do to keep Mary? Could I get my own place, work full-time and go to school at night? Because surely Mom was threatening to withdraw support. Including use of her car. My tuition was covered by scholarships, I had that working for me. The next day I told Mary what had gone down.

"You should dump me," she said. "Seriously, don't look at me like that. It sounds nice and romantic, working full-time to keep us together, but it would suck for you. How do we know we will last? We don't know. We can both find other people. Just say goodbye, right now."

"Jeez, do you really mean that?" Mary bit her lip and her eyes blinked away some moisture.

"No. No, I don't."

"Good. I sure don't want us to split up. Actually, I was thinking we'd be good roommates."

"I like that line of thought, but don't get ahead of the game. What are you going to do right now?"

I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to call their bluff. I just don't think they're going to throw their only child to the wolves. We'll find out tonight."

That night, Mom and Dad brought reinforcements: Reverend Patterson from our church. He was a very likeable guy who always had something clever to say. Nonetheless, I was worried about what kind of approach he might take.

"Joe, I've already talked to your Mom and Dad earlier, so I'm going to talk mostly to you. You've met this young lady and you're both happy. God loves that. It's what He wants to see. The fact that your gal doesn't believe in Him isn't a problem. It's an opportunity. Bring her to church with you. It's entirely possible that's exactly what God has planned for her and you. And Mom and Dad, here's another thought: sometimes you gotta let the devil get close enough so's you can punch him in the snoot. You understand what I'm saying?" The reverend made a fist and popped it in the air, which made us all laugh. It was one of those group laughs where everyone is just dying for any excuse to break the tension.

We understand, Reverend," said my dad, "and thank you for coming here tonight on such short notice."

It seemed I was off the hook. But could I possibly produce Mary at our church?

"I don't know, Joe. I guess it wouldn't hurt me to go once and meet your family, but I'm not going every Sunday."

"Believe it or not, we go three times a week. Wednesday evening, Sunday morning, and then Sunday night. Sunday night is showtime: speaking in tongues, getting slain in the spirit, dancing down the aisles. You really need to see it, it's quite a spectacle."

"Yeah, once would be enough for me."

"Well, at the very least, we've bought us some time."

I picked Mary up from her dorm on Sunday morning and we went to church. My folks met her and she was very charming. Later I was having lunch with Mom and she gave Mary a glowing review.

"Well, I think she's very nice, Joseph! And hardly any accent at all. Her English is excellent and she's very well-spoken."

"Mom, she's smarter than I am. You should see her robot, it's so much better than mine. The limb articulation is amazing. I mean --" I knew I had blown it.

"Oh no, you two are building robots together? That will never do. I thought you were through with that, Joseph."

"It's all very good science, Mom. We're writing a paper on it. Our professor is really behind us."

"Science is all well and good, but when it goes against the Bible, I have a big problem with it."

"Mom, some of the Bible is hogwash, it just doesn't stand up to common sense. How could Noah have collected every species and kept them alive for over a year? The fecal logistics alone stagger the mind."

"God helped him."

"That's your answer?"

"Yes. God can do anything."

"God can do anything, but he allows disease to torture and kill innocent people?"

"Satan is powerful."

"But not as strong as God. God could and should end the suffering in the world."

"No doubt your atheist girlfriend has poisoned you with these ideas."

"I came to realize them through my own thinking. She has nothing to do with it."

My mother got on the telephone and within thirty minutes Reverend Patterson was back at the house. We all sat down in the living room and listened to him.

"First, I want you to know that I think this is a fine, God-fearing family. Mom and Dad, you're both wonderful servants of the Lord, and I'm sure you've beaten The Devil back at every opportunity. However, and I'm certainly no expert on the subject, I think you might want to cut Joe some slack on this robot pursuit of his. I talked about it with one of our elders who's an engineer. A good man who loves the Lord. He said that one day, we will be able to get robots to do things that are too dangerous for humans. Perform surgery on virulent patients. Rescue people in unsafe situations. Even fight our wars for us. Think of our boys in Vietnam right now, what that might mean. In any event, I don't think Joe is committing a sin by studying about robots." Mom started crying.

"They've always looked so hideous to me," said Mom. "I was sure they were something of the devil. When Joe first started making robots as a child, I felt like he was creating false idols. He was obsessed. It scared me."

"Mom, the robots Mary and I are building don't look like the ones in movies. They're just tools, really, something to make life easier."

"Yes, well, the Reverend should've heard the conversation you and I had a little earlier. All this science, Reverend Patterson, has turned my son into an atheist."

"The boy has doubts, I can tell. I had doubts myself, before I entered into the Lord's service. Joe's got plenty of time to work them out. We want to keep Joe in the fold, and I think the best way to do that is to give him a wide berth. He's a fine boy, and I have faith God'll provide a path for him."

"Do you hear that, Joe?" my father chirped in. "You can work on your robots, and take all the time you need to examine your faith. Thank you again, Reverend, for stopping by. We'll see you tonight."

I called Mary and told her what had transpired.

"Wow, sounds like the preacher really took your side, Joe. You ought to be feeling pretty good."

"I need to watch my big mouth. I can't believe I mentioned robots in front of Mom. I was just so excited that she liked you."

"At first."

"Yeah, well, who knows how she's going to react in the future to either one of us? Or our robots? I can't believe I'm saying this about my own mother, but I just don't trust her. So, with your approval, I'm going to make some changes. I'm going to finish this semester, buy a cheap car with my savings bonds, then get a job on the graveyard shift. That way, I can take my classes just as I normally would. We'll get an apartment near campus. And as long as there's coffee in the world, I will get through it fine. I just don't have any faith in my home situation over the long haul. I could say the wrong thing again and be out in the street."

"Wow, that's a lot, Joe. But if you think you can pull it off, okay. I'll always be worrying about you. One good thing - I told my parents we were thinking about living together. Shock of shocks, they're okay with it. It was a welcome surprise to me, how cool they were. They've always said that they trust my judgment, and it looks like they're sticking to that. But they do want to meet you."

"Natch. Gotta make sure the yank passes muster."

"They know you're on scholarship to BU. That impressed them."

"One more thing. It's a weird time to finally say it - but I absolutely love you, Mary Chen." I had never expressed anything more exuberantly in my life. And I was sure Mary's face lit up as she responded.

"Oh, it's a wonderful, wonderful time to say it, Yankee Joe!"