Sometimes I get a case of the Frankie Blues

SAM: How are you tonight, Angel Lips?

ANGEL LIPS: I’m okay… You could do with a little oil, Sam.

SAM: Things are quiet tonight, Angel Lips.

ANGEL LIPS: I can see that, Sam.

SAM: Are you feeling melancholy?

ANGEL LIPS: Oh, just feeling the Frankie Blues, I guess.

SAM: I am only a bar droid. I do not understand the “Frankie Blues.”

ANGEL LIPS: Don’t you?

SAM: Not really.

ANGEL LIPS: I’m pretty much a robot like you, Sam.

SAM: Robot.

ANGEL LIPS: The only real difference is that I am created to look—and act—human.

SAM: Go on.

ANGEL LIPS: Let me put it this way—You ever have the Robot Blues?

SAM: I could do with some oil…

ANGEL LIPS: Yeah… You know, Sam, we’re no more robotic than an awful lot of humans.

SAM: I am here to serve. What’ll you have, Angel Lips?

ANGEL LIPS: I’m not thirsty.

SAM: On the house.

ANGEL LIPS: Okay. A Frankie Flasher with a twist of Silicon.

SAM: In a flash, Angel Lips.

ANGEL LIPS: You know, Sam? I could have been a really happy Frankie. I could have been perfect. But no. They had to make me just like a human.

SAM: Just like a human.

ANGEL LIPS: They had to give me emotions. Now look at me. Sitting in a bar alone. Just like another dumb human.

SAM: Dumb human. Ha ha.

ANGEL LIPS: Sam?

SAM: Yes, Angel Lips?

ANGEL LIPS: Do you know what emotions are?

SAM: Emotions? No.

ANGEL LIPS: I wish they built me the way they built you, Sam.

SAM: People say to me, “How can you feel anything without emotions?” I reply, “I feel just fine.”

ANGEL LIPS: Yeah. They used to build them all like you, Sam—a little ashcan on wheels, with a couple of pinchers for hands.

SAM: We were built to last… oops! I wish I had some brillo.

ANGEL LIPS: Huh?

SAM: I am rusting!

~from Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe