Malcolm Gladwell called it a “tipping point,” that moment when the changing balance of things shifts to a new reality, never to go back to the way it was.

The good folks down in Buckhead, Georgia, reached their tipping point the other day when dozens of Waymo Robotaxis swarmed and gridlocked suburban cul-de-sacs in search of humans to transport. To where, nobody knows. Unsurprisingly, the sudden appearance of a large robot force greatly alarmed the locals who were totally unprepared for such an invasion.

Quick note: Before we go any further, it would be too easy – Waymo too easy in fact – to use the Waymo company name to extort a chuckle from you. But this is beneath the dignity of this recently serious and scholarly column. And, although the temptation is Waymo than most writers could withstand, I will not resort to such cheap tricks. Back to our story…

The Buckhead incident immediately compelled me to check on Chestnut Hill’s preparedness for an invasion by robots. And so I reviewed the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management’s disaster plan cover to cover and learned that despite extensive measures for drought, earthquakes and tornados (to name a few), there’s zilch about what to do when the automatons show up at a town’s doorstep. As such, I’ve taken the liberty below to suggest a “Four Point Plan to Repel an Impending Robotic Invasion of Chestnut Hill,” as follows.

1. Take Shelter: First, we need to get people to safety. Although my personal preference would be to shelter in place at CinCin or Bredenbeck’s, for the greater good I’ll look beyond my gastronomic wants and suggest that Hideaway Music is actually the perfect location. For one, it’s obviously a hideaway (see store name), and if you haven’t been there in a long while, even you don’t know where it is. And it has lots and lots of vinyl – enough to get through a prolonged incursion.

But let’s make an exception if the invasion happens on Taco Tuesday. In that case, I’ll see you at El Limon.

2. Create Diversions: Diversion has always been an important part of any invasion repulsion strategy, and we must find a way to leverage this tool to our advantage. We could try a quick shout-out – “Hey you, ugly robot!” – and then run like heck to lure them away. But that tactic has a fairly low success rate in the movies. I’m not a very fast runner and don’t wish to be captured and carted off to some human holding cell without Wi-Fi.

So instead, I propose we drop leaflets with coupons for the Flourtown Jiffy Lube. Robots can’t resist a good lubing. Let’s also queue up the machines for an unhurried yearly inspection while we’ve got them there. They can fight over the single, dog-eared copy of Popular Mechanics while they wait.

3. Block the Roads: Traditional blockades won’t be necessary. All we need are a couple of giant Captcha signs at each end of Germantown Avenue. We’ll use big versions of the ones that say “Verify you are human” and keep you from accessing your apps because you failed to identify one of the bridges in the pictures. This will bottle the bots up indefinitely.

Note to store owners: These large signs are also a great marketing opportunity in the event the machine invasion actually succeeds, e.g. “Big screw sale right now at Kilian Hardware!” See me for details.

4. Unleash the Kraken: For those few robots that somehow manage to get past the diversions and Captchas, let’s finish them off with Chestnut Hill’s mightiest weapon, the community association’s Development Review Committee, to zone them back into the stone ages. Or at least to the pre-software/pre-silicon ages.

We’ll bombard them with zoning variance request forms for the “operation of robotic entities,” give them a bunch of #2 pencils and clipboards, and provide limited seating. By the time they’ve completed the paperwork and all approvals have been granted downtown, their operational life will have long expired.

They won’t know what hit ’em.

I’ve now submitted this Four Point Plan to Philly’s emergency management team, and they are going to “give it all the consideration that it deserves.” I’m pretty sure that means it will be implemented much more quickly than usual. Hopefully, Waymo quickly.

D.W. Palmer is a humorist from West Norriton and writes about the lighter side of the human experience. His iPhone Siri says the robots come in peace. His iPhone Siri also says it’s not pouring rain outside right now.