Sometimes inanimate objects in Night Vale gain sentience. There's a telepathic river rock who's the Community College President, for example. Thankfully she's not the murderously homicidal kind of sentient inanimate object like the toasters, although when I asked her if she'd be willing to participate on some telepathic experiments she drew this really insulting caricature of me...I'm not sure how, I mean, she doesn't even have any limbs to draw with! And she's an educator, she should be way more supporting of the sciences.