Have you ever...

Have you ever Facetimed your dog? He hears your voice and runs around and barks and then lies down and you call his name and he sees you on this shiny chunk of not-food, but he licks it anyway, plaintively mourning the not-presence of the guy who’s sometimes around who is the only one who knows how to fit the harness properly to take him on a walk.

It’s heartbreaking.

How do you think your dog would deal with Snapchat?

Have you ever eaten a microwave burrito but the microwave was clearly loafing and the gooey middle was not so gooey? So you consider going out to eat but it’s Valentine’s day and you don’t want to deal with that at any restaurant so you end up ordering pizza and the delivery guy locks eyes with you and you both know that neither of you is exactly having a blast. And you wonder if he needs a friend like you do. What if he likes Smash Bros too? Or The Office? Anything is better than the look of quasi-desperation in his eyes as the door closes and you begin to shamefully eat your pizza.

It’s only 5 slices later that you realize you didn’t tip him.

Have you ever been in one of those lines? You know the ones. Where you aren’t really that invested in what you’re waiting for but you’ve sunk too much time in to give up and your mind begins to wander and the people adjacent look grumpy and the DMV or post office or whatever smells just faintly of dry rot and there’s a faint buzz from a light fixture about to die? But have you been in one of those lines without anything to keep your attention from wandering? Not anymore.

We are never ever bored anymore. There’s always a snapchat story or article or FaceTaGramTer or whatever. There’s this bit in a book I read (that recently turned 20) where there’s a film that’s so entertaining it was dangerous. Like they tested it by telling a research subject to cut off a digit to watch it again. I wonder if the collective Internet cellphone social startup business isn’t converging to that. Maybe the comprehensive use of technology is making the little annoyances of life just comfortable enough that we won’t deal with them. I know that’s straight out of Huxley, but Huxley probably didn’t come up with it while being encouraged to water his plants by a mediocre rap producer.

I’m not saying this because of any holier-than-thou impulse that I know more about the world than anyone else around. People who see a lot of me know that that’s clearly untrue. I’m also not saying this because I hate technology or anything like that. I’m probably going to work on it for the rest of my life.

I’m writing this as a way to justify going on walks to places without my cell phone and maybe even learning to cook. And so that maybe I’m a hypocrite if I don’t at least try.

Have you ever opened up your phone and moved the screen around, read some shit, fiddled with some doodads, and closed it? And then realized you have no idea what the hell you just did and read?

I don’t have the answer to this, but I felt like it needed to be written down. It’s the hidden ailment of our time.

I hope you read this while pooping. It sure beats the alternative.