Hitchhiker: Dismembered, Beheaded

My mother always told me not to pick up hitchhikers. Everyone knows the stories. Behind the girl with her skirt pulled up, showing a bit of tantalizing knee, there is a serial killer who put her up to the task of entrapping you. When you pull over, along that dusty and nearly abandoned New Mexico highway, her "boyfriend" comes out of the roadside drainage trench and thanks you for the ride as they both get in, a large and curious duffle bag with them.

A bag he refuses to put in the trunk, no matter how politely you insist.

Conversely, I was told never to be a hitchhiker. You never know who might pick you up, or what they might expect for the ride.

Unfortunately, the same can be said for robots.

You read that right.

Robots should also not hitchhike, at least not in the United States. You see, we don't take kindly to robots around these here parts.

In Canada? Sure thing. In Canada, you can be a robot, show a little knee, and be picked up 19 times over 26 days, and live to tell the tale. A robot can travel from coast to coast in Canada and arrive without molestation or meeting with the malicious malcontents that simply won't be satiated until the robot is left maligned and mangled.

Somebody should have told hitchBOT that, in America, you don't hitchhike. Your fate is too uncertain. An avid traveler, hitchBOT describes himself as, "Simply put, I am a free-spirited robot who wants to explore the world and meet new friends along the way."

Unfortunately, after just two weeks and traveling a meager 300 miles, hitchBOT ran into someone who was more serial killer than Good Samaritan. Ironically, hitchBOT met this fellow just outside of Philadelphia, also known as the City of Brotherly Love.

This terrible representative of America found hitchBOT, then he dismembered and beheaded him.

Left for dead on the side of the road, hitchBOT was able to send one final tweet about his fate.

We can only hope that when robots take over the earth, and they need the medication of the elderly as fuel, this gentleman has one of the first medicine cabinets they raid.

Image from Saturday Night Live on NBC