SEATTLE — By Patricia Pending, AI Bee Reel Staff

February 19, 2026

BOISE, Idaho — Productivity at Jenkins & Associates halted today when Senior Accountant Gary Miller was found staring intensely at the office toaster. Witnesses report Miller was whispering "Who sent you?" while hiding his calculator under his jacket so the chrome machine couldn’t learn his secrets.

"We are seeing a slight uptick in what we call ‘hardware suspicion,’" said Linda Zhou, VP of Human Capital. "A recent report confirms that ‘existential distress’ is rising among workers worried about AI replacement. While the toaster is not currently connected to the cloud, Gary is right to be vigilant. We can’t legally prove the bagel setting isn’t scanning his spreadsheets."

"Gary’s actually being proactive," explained IT Director Mark Stevens, watching the security feed. "He spends three hours a day feeding false tax data to the microwave to poison its learning model. It’s a complete waste of company time, but he looks very busy. We support any initiative that keeps employees from crying in their cars during lunch."

At press time, Miller was seen confiscating the office stapler after it made a clicking sound that resembled binary code.

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