Although robot freight handlers continue to make inroads, three objections still remain. First, despite great strides, robot manipulators lack fine tuning. Second, even with nanoscale processors, robot emulation of intuition still lags. Third, while the ILA is willing to overlook nonunion labor if it’s human, nothing starts a strike like a ‘bot doing a human’s job.
Accordingly, humans are irreplaceable on yachts and cruise ships, where robots handle heavy containers and humans load luggage and breakables.

Excellent.

Is it cheating to use comments to expand the information content of a ficlet?

Not necessarily. Thus far, the side-comments in this series are more like annotations: the ficlet would still read the same (for better or worse) even without the commentary. In my own mind, they’re a bit like the episode prologues in the anime series Outlaw Star, but that’s just me.

I liked the ‘Elvis smile’ comment, a little more detail about our husky voiced femme practicale. And I think the comments are funny, like the tangential asides old people throw in while telling a long story.
LoA

the gestures of the characters were great.