Bert and Ernie - Roombas at the End of the World (2020). Bert and Ernie are Roombas living and working at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, but in January 2020, Ernie went missing. Had it somehow escaped, only to face bitter polar temperatures around -28 °C?
“I believe it started with just one poster that went up outside of the galley, with a picture of two people calling themselves the Cookie Monsters posing in balaclavas and standing on a staircase holding Ernie. It said something like, “If you ever want to see Ernie alive again, leave a tray of chocolate chip cookies in such and such location and we will return him safely.” So that was the initial ransom.
As tends to happen in a community like this, things sort of took off from there—everybody ran with it in their own direction. So, on that wall outside of the galley, there evolved a narrative where people were trying to mount rescue missions, and there were sign-up sheets for that. And there were people saying, “We won’t negotiate with you until you provide proof of life.”
Down the hallway, there was another narrative where people had assumed the worst: that the kidnappers had ended poor Ernie’s life prematurely. So the memorial that had sprung up for Ernie next to one of the water fountains grew. There were fake flowers and Tootsie rolls, and some people put some trash there, just in homage—trash that Ernie would never be able to sweep up. I even ended up writing a parody of the song “5,000 Candles in the Wind” from “Parks and Recreation” for Ernie, and singing it at an open-mic night.
But Ernie did come back. Those of us who believed that he had perished (I was one of those) were in the wrong. Someone claimed that the cookies had been delivered and that the kidnappers should give Ernie back, and then there was a poster that went up that said Ernie was found abandoned underneath one of the staircases. He was rescued and revived by the Cookie Monsters. So, the kidnappers sort of got credit for saving him in the end.”
- Kyle Ferguson, South Pole Telescope Researcher.
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