Venice, Italy is a place I’ll never forget. The City of Love, of Gondolas and misty canals. I famously invented the term “Dry Atlantis” to describe it. It’s a city of water that is like no other, frozen in time on the Venetian Lagoon. A symbol of human ingenuity and conquest, naval superiority, cultural renaissance, spirituality, and decadence. A city of great dynamism, of old and new… And BLOODTHIRSTY ROBOTS.

You read that right. Sinister, stoic droids have been patiently ingratiating themselves into the Venetian lifestyle for decades, maybe even centuries. And what’s worse, Venetians don’t even notice them, and worse still, can’t seem to live without them. At the front of every apartment or condo, a silent robot glares at passers by, recording, studying... preparing... for what? Press the robots grimy little “buttons” (what are we REALLY poking here folks?), and you buzz the homeowner to come on down. A small convenience. Is THAT what we’re willing to hand over our humanity for? A doorbell? I say no. I refuse to cave. I’m here to sound the alarm, to show you what we’re up against.

These robots think they’re slick… But I see them hiding in plain sight. I SEE EVERYTHING. JOIN ME. — These robots think they’re slick… But I see them hiding in plain sight. **I SEE EVERYTHING. JOIN ME.**

Below, you’ll find a collection of Venetian bots, along with my studies and notes on each. We need to be watching them - there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re watching us...

😐. Alright, here’s the robot that started it all. This jackass must be new. Clearly this is a robot disguised as a mailbox with doorbells (nipples?). This guy tipped me off to the whole operation. The scary thing about this guy is that he eats your mail. And probably reads it. He’s probably responding to credit card special offers, hoarding all your Southwest points, sitting on those bad boys until all the robots rise up together and hop on a flight to D.C. to take over.

This one looks like it needs to see a dermatologist. Again, it eats mail and it knows when you have visitors and who they are. It knows too much. And it’s got those anti-reflective strips from American Football, which means when this one wakes from it’s deep sleep it’s first order of business is to lay you out.

This four-eyed dork is smarter than the others - must’ve been at this game for a while. This sneaky P.O.S. is hiding behind a bush. It thinks I can’t spot it, but he didn’t get by me. One of it’s eyebrows is missing, evidence that it stepped too far out of line and got it’s butt kicked. Having learned it’s lesson, this coward fled to this bush to hibernate until end-times.

This robot looks like this 🤨. It’s skeptical, old, and physically weathered. Clearly it’s seen some things. Maybe it’s even changed it’s mind about enslaving humans? Maybe I’m giving it too much credit. I’m definitely giving it too much credit. This robot wants our souls. I flicked this robot off.

Ok, bear with me here, freedom fighters. This may not look like a robot, but I’m pretty convinced that it is. And this one is especially unsettling. Clearly this is a sculpture, A.K.A. art. Which means that a human made this. The droids have already gotten in our heads. They’ve somehow convinced some poor Venetians to hop off of their Gondola and build one of them that will inevitably rise up and force us to work in bitcoin farms or whatever. Can’t trust a soul these days. Spooky.

Here we have a cyclops robot, potentially wearing visor shades. This thing is might have one eye, but it’s not your friendly Mike Wazowski. This thing definitely wants to eat your bones. Or whatever. I don’t know how robots work. I don’t even know how boats work.

This mustachioed robot gave me a firm pat on the butt cheeks as I walked by. Surprisingly, I have no further comments about that.

Look at this uppity S.O.B. Lacquer, wood grain - it thinks it’s better than you. This thing belongs in the dash of a Lincoln. I don’t even know what to make of it. All I know is that it’s beautiful and I’m terrified of it. Just like my ex-wife.

This guy. This metallic slab is clearly evil. It looks like something a Disney villain would build to step on a kitten. How can Venetians walk by this everyday on their way from the velvet slipper store to the Gondola store (or whatever it is Venetians do with their time), and not realize they’re slowly being taken over? It’s hard to believe. But that’s why I’m here: to tell the people to WAKE UP.

If this gigantic grid of robotic evil isn’t a call to action I don’t know how to get you lazy bums motivated. Look at it. So many buttons. Right now they’re all “doorbells”. But what about when the robots wake up and retaliate? One button fires a laser, another saps your life-force to power their circuits, another steals your soul to catalog in their robotic encyclopedia of conquered life-forms. Most of them probably initiate an unwanted download of MacKeeper that you will almost certainly never be able to remove. This is a war machine. And we need to stop it while we still can.

My assertion that Venice is overrun with ravenous robots, and my blatant doxing of Venetian “doorbells” may have made me sound like Alex Jones, but sadly, I’m neither lying about nor imagining this horrible truth. I’m also not Alex Jones. I’m not even related to Alex Jones. Ok I’m technically related by law but that marriage was only recognized in Belize so it really isn’t relevant and he didn’t get me anything for Christmas two years in a row so I’m definitely still NOT calling him “dad”.

If you needed any more convincing that the world is ending and they’re coming for you, simply look towards the undisputed champions of letting the good people of America know they’re going to be pillaged and ruined by some unfamiliar people or thing, Fox News.

The bottom line is that now I’ve done my duty by showing you the TRUTH. It’s up to you to decide whether to lay down and let the singularity swallow you whole, or stand up, book a one way trip to Venice, sucker punch every last Venetian doorbell in the skull, and either live to see freedom or die a hero. I hope to see you in the fight.

P.S. Keep an eye out for my next travel article: “Neuter This, you Dumbass Robots: How Venice’s Feral Dogs are Taking the Fight to the Streets.”