The mother makes smiley faces with blackberry jam on toast for her daughter. Suddenly, violent sounds come from the laundry room. There, the mother finds out that the nanny bot is malfunctioning. When her daughter comes in, the mother tells her to leave. She calls for her husband to help, but when he’s there, they wonder if the nanny bot can be fixed this time. He says they may not be able to fix her because her model is discontinued.

The mother thinks about how the nanny bot has been a part of her family for the last five years. Back then, as part of their jobs, they’re offered a complimentary nanny bot from their work. The mother is hesitant at first, especially because the nanny robots are stereotypically designed after black and brown women, and both the mother and father come from ancestries in which black and brown people were nannies. They reluctantly accept the offer, knowing that they need to have someone to look after the house while they work.

When the nanny bot comes, she immediately gets along with the daughter and tells both parents that they have nothing to worry about. The nanny robot has countless commands that can be programmed. Right away, the mother programs smiley faces with blackberry jam on toast. They briefly talk about how the mother was named after her nana, which becomes the nanny robot’s name too. Over time, the nanny robot successfully takes care of the daughter and takes care of the house in many other ways. The father is skeptical, worrying that the nanny robot may push the expectation of perfection onto her daughter. However, the mother grows to not only depend on her but like her.

Now that the nanny bot has started to break down, the daughter poses the question of whether she’s dead. The mother and father debate back and forth about the meaning of death and whether it can be applied to robots. The father says that machines don’t die, whereas the mother struggles to explain death to her daughter. She thinks about how, once, she asked the same question to the nanny robot, to which the nanny robot says that she’s a machine but nonetheless still real.

The day after the nanny robot dies, the mother stays home to console her daughter, who wants to play games and have space. On the phone, her supervisor tells her that the company will provide another nanny robot. The mother feels like it’s too soon and pledges to talk it over with her husband. Going back to the laundry room, she reminisces about the nanny robot and the emotional attachment she still has to her. However, her husband, later, says that it’s a good idea to get a new one. At dinner, the daughter asks if the nanny robot will be different. The father says it’ll be a better model and that they’re just robots. Later, in bed, the mother says that the old nanny robot was special and can’t just be replaced like that. They argue for a bit, but the mother soon goes to sleep.

The next day, the new nanny robot comes. It’s a white man. He seems more artificial to the mother. The mother thinks about how, before today, she, her husband, and her daughter went to a processing plant to put away the old nanny robot’s model. Now, the new nanny robot is here. The daughter asks if he can make smiley faces with blackberry jam on toast. He looks at her confusingly and says that he can be programmed to.