Cy Borg, meet Anne Droid

It all started when Domino's promised they could get a pizza from their oven to your front door in less than 30 minutes. They've had to cut that vow out of their collection of slogans, because too many of their 16-year-old couriers were smashing up their parents' cars in an effort to slake your appetite on time.

But that's what started the "Why cook at home, when someone is willing to deliver food to you?" trend in cuisine around the world, and now, everywhere you look, home stoves sit unused as a fleet of Impalas and Corollas, fitted with magnetic lights on the roof, bring food to a hungry world.

And it's not just cars! We are promised that pizzas and subs will arrive on our porches via drone in the coming years, and lookie here! Robots are already making tracks to get that veal parmigiana sandwich to you.

Here's what's happening in England:

In the woods of Northampton, a meandering delivery robot got lost in the woods!

Imagine being Matthew McCormack. He took his bicycle for a ride in the woods and met a fellow traveler...a little grey robot. I'm sure at first he thought he might have been hallucinating.

"I spotted the robot while cycling in Lings Wood," he told NPR in an email. "We have them all over town for grocery deliveries, but I was surprised to see it so far from the shops, so I took a picture of it."

Before you ask, Matthew McCormack didn't just ride into town on a turnip truck. He's a history professor at the University of Northampton, England. Now, since he tweeted the picture below on Twitter, he's regionally famous,

He captioned the photo a bit whimsically: "On my bike ride this morning, saw a delivery robot lost in the woods."

 

McCormack also said, "It doubtless knew where it was going and got there eventually, but it did seem curious trundling along in woodland."

Extra points for saying "trundling," by the way.

He's racked up more than 250,000 likes and over 17,000 retweets. Starship Technologies, the robot company that makes these little automatons, also got in touch to say they "absolutely love" his message.

McCormack figures that people are enjoying the picture he posted because his little woody buddy "is reminiscent of beloved robot characters such as R2-D2 and WALL-E." 

"I think the image is resonating with people because it is funny but also wistful," he said. "We often project personalities onto tech, and these little grocery robots are very cute."

He also says that he's heard from others who have seen the grocery robots taking a shortcut through the woods. I don't think we have them around here, but friends in Pennsylvania tell me that Giant supermarkets up there have robots prowling the aisles checking on empty shelves and also sticking their googly eyes into peoples' carts.

I don't want a robot looking in my cart, telling the world that I am on my way to purchasing jars of anchovies, bags of salted nuts, and Panko bread crumbs. That's personal!