I'll tell you about Bob's inane gadgets because it's present-buying time.

Last week, I heard him talking, but nobody was there. I found him speaking into a microphone, with his words magically appearing on his computer screen. This gadget's called Naturally Speaking.

It can cause problems. Our puppy Becky, who's leash-trained, has decided that Bob's the ''play'' guy and I'm the ''poop'' lady. Hence, she'll only ''go'' when I take her. We don't like this. So this morning when she scratched to go out, Bob took her. She just played. Each time he'd bring her back, she'd look at me and scratch again. But Bob kept taking her out. This cycle was repeated five times with no bathroom results. Bob had work to do, so he stopped playing her game.

Then Becky scratched at my office door and cried. I took her out. In two seconds I said, ''Becky, poop.'' And she did.

I brought her back in, not realizing Bob was e-mailing with voice commands. He said, ''Did she poop?'' Hence his business e-mail read,

Dear Dr. Adams,

Thank you. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Bob Did she poop?

No, he did not check the screen. Yes, he sent it.

Ten times a day, I hear him yelling words like, ''RED. ENVELOPE. GLASS. COW. APPLE.'' He's using Brain Age - a gadget that helps memory. On a screen are words you repeat. Then words change and show up faster, so your brain works harder. You're improving when your memory matches younger and younger age groups. Ours has poor sound recognition. So he shouts. Sweetly, I said, ''Bob, go outside and do this. Otherwise I will have to kill you.'' He glared at me. ''Thanks. He heard your words and now he's rating me 82 years old!''

That's when I had the monumental realization that Bob thinks his gadgets are connected to real people. Therefore, ''their'' opinions of him matter. When I had schizophrenic patients I learned never to disagree with their delusions. ''Honey,'' I said, ''he'll understand.''

''I doubt it,'' he said angrily, as he went outside with the little man who resides in the Brain Age.

Last Christmas, when we had opened all but the last present, Bob excitedly handed it to me. The card read, ''From Santa.'' With gleeful curiosity, I opened it. It was a Roomba - a small circular vacuum that's a robot.

Now he uses it all the time. It trundles around the house, while Bob watches it, entranced. I've said, ''The point of a robot is that you don't have to follow it.'' But he does, endlessly. ''He'll be lonely,'' he said. While he's keeping Roomba company, Becky, a border collie, herds it. She and Bob get very depressed when it's finished and travels back to its base unit.

Bob has always been a weather fanatic. In the window behind our bed is an EnviraStation. When I awake, I say, ''I love you.'' He says, ''Good morning,'' to his pal - the tiny weatherman in his weather station. I go back to sleep while Bob drones on about everything under the sun - literally: humidity, temperature, etc. Recently, he startled me by exclaiming, ''It's raining!'' Instead of throwing the gadget across the room, I said, ''There's this remarkable innovative invention, Bob. It's called a window. See?'' I pointed, so he'd see the rain.

Now he's got a portable weather station connected to a satellite. His incessant cell phone calls go like this, ''Want to know the humidity?'' I used to say, ''No.'' But he'd feel bad. Now I say, ''Sure.'' Then I put the phone down so that I can still faintly hear his voice while I'm e-mailing friends. When he stops, I pick up and say, ''That's amazing.'' Always works.

Bob can take pictures and e-mail them from his new cell phone. ''Check your e-mail,'' I hear 25 times a day. Often he's in the kitchen. On my e-mail is a stupid picture of him waving while eating toast. He soon realized he could send streaming videos with sound. Now, when he's out, in addition to seeing lovely videos of our dogs running, I get to see videos of Bob eating a turkey sandwich while saying stupid things he thinks are funny. ''This bite has lettuce on it. This bite has ...'' You get the picture, so to speak.

When Bob's in his front room, he can't hear Becky scratching at the back door, so he bought a Gotta-Go Dog Doorbell. It transmits a wireless signal from the back door to a doorbell in Bob's office, in deafening tones. In a nanosecond, Becky learned to push the button so she could go out to play. After I heard the ding-dong (the chime - not Bob ... well?) for the 50 millionth time, the Gotta-Go had to go - to the dump.

When Bob saw this column, he said, ''I sound like a dork.'' I didn't reply.

He wanted me to add that he said, ''As long as we're together, I'd be happy in a cave.'' I admonished him, ''We don't lie in newspapers, Bob.'' He said, ''I mean it.''

Uh-huh. I know he means it. Why? We've got a generator plus a truckload of C-cell batteries. So all his little friends can come along.