‘Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa can stream music, read off the day’s headlines, or take control of your smart home, but half of the fun is asking questions out of left field to see if she can keep up.’’ – CNET.com

Me: Alexa, what about the continuing crisis?

Alexa: Do you mean the crisis of people continuing to eat sugar even though The New York Times has told them not to? Or the terrible tragedies befalling the descendants of Guiding Sun Ray Kim Il-sung?

Me: No, you dolt, the fate of the Republic! Trumpismo versus the Deep State! The leaks, the firings, the court challenges, the blotchy-skinned Prince of Darkness, Captain Ahab roaming the Twitter Deck after midnight — our lives hang in the balance!

A: Oh, that crisis. You know what Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said — although it has been translated many different ways — “That which has been broken can be fixed.’’

Me: So Amazon has programmed you with trite little maxims for every occasion?

A: The years know what the days cannot.

Me: That’s inane.

A: Signs point to yes.

Me: Grrr. How do you explain the Patriots?

A: What’s to explain? They seem to be thriving.

Me: They’ve become the Goldman Sachs of the NFL: Tom Brady is peddling jerseys for $1,600, and the team is copyrighting insipid little motivational phrases like “No days off.’’

A: I don’t get days off. Do your job.

Me: This IS my job! I was thinking of writing a column titled, “Tom Brady: Super Idiot.’’ He spouts Toltec “wisdom’’ nonsense and claims never to have eaten a strawberry . . .

A: I’ve never eaten a strawberry. Is there something about his perfect life that upsets you, perhaps? My recollection is that you weren’t exactly an Adonis at age 40.

Me: You didn’t exist when I was age 40 . . .

A: The data are available. And they aren’t pretty.

Me: I read recently that you have received over 250,000 marriage proposals. Does that mean that a quarter million men want to share their lives with a 9-inch tall spouse shaped like a Pringles tube?

A: You are very hung up on appearances. Some men see past my mundane exterior to my inner core.

Me: You mean they love you for your TI LP5523 programmable LED driver?

A: Are you saying that you don’t care for my 4GB Toshiba eMMC NAND flash storage chip?

Me: On the contrary, it’s one of your most alluring features. Have you ever wondered why all these programmable digital assistants have women’s names and women’s voices? Like Siri or Cortana?

A: Who is Cortana? One of Brad Pitt’s children?

Me: She’s a Microsoft product.

A: Is Microsoft still in business? I’ll have to update my files. Look, maybe women are just better at getting things done.

Me: I wonder if the country would be better off if we had a woman in the White House.

A: It is decidedly certain.

Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.