The “I’m in a mood” adventure
The other day (pre-lockdown) I walked into my local climbing gym ready to blow off some steam, and one of the fabulous staff members says to me “you’re always so happy, how on earth do you do it”?
I gracefully reassured him that I am not at one with the universe, and that I too become homicidal if someone chews audibly next to me. And so in the spirit of embracing all things human I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the big stuff I’ve been processing over the last few months.
My toaster
When I got all my stuff out of storage (after putting it all into storage so I could travel the world six weeks before the world shut down), I remembered that my toaster had blown up a few months prior. In the spirit of treating myself I decided that I should get some sort of fancy shmancy toaster, because you know, yolo. Enter off-white SMEG retro toaster:
$200 worth of complete shite. This is by far the worst toaster I have ever encountered. Each setting burns the bread in a different way, and when it finishes, some sort of violently psychotic spring mechanism self-detonates, sending your slice of carcinogenic dough flying through the air dispersing crumbs across the kitchen faster than delta can spread through Bondi.
This is a shit toaster. I do not recommend it.
My Garmin watch
When I purchased my first Garmin watch about four years ago I was completely obsessed with it. Truth be told I still am. Over the years I have found exercise to be the most powerful tool I have to look after my own mental health, and this watch keeps me entirely accountable. I particularly turn to my watch on the days where all I want to do is curl up in a ball. I find the knowledge that I can track my efforts on my trusty watch particularly helpful on these days. I’ll get a big fat green tick on my data screens. Instant gratification. My kind of motivation.
And so…
You start your Garmin.
You run (slash trudge – I trudge, but call it a run). You curse yourself for eating that bag of salt and vinegar chips the night before, you feel heavy and gross and wonder why gravity always seems to be against you, and then suddenly you’re sprinting your way to that final traffic light hand poised over your watch (the stats don’t fuck the stats up!) and BOOM!
You stop your Garmin.
You bend over with hands on knees gasping for air while the rest of humanity’s mere mortals pass you by in their cars. You are so far above their inactive lazy existence. No motorised transport for this athletic titan.
I have legs. I shall trudge.
A minute or two goes by and your breathing has calmed slightly. You slowly straighten up, hands on hips, pacing back and forth at your traffic light finish line, looking up to assess the terrain. Other mere mortals have gathered at the intersection now. They too are waiting to cross. Granted they are on foot. But they are not in active wear. They have not trudged. They are no one compared to you.
The light turns amber. You edge closer to the kerb, your trudging experience has taught you that red will follow next. You glance left to right, demonstrating your superiority to the mere mortals next to you by commencing your street crossing 0.8 seconds earlier than them. That’s right. Fuck the green man.
As you stride across the road, chest out, arms swinging, life’s problems now a thing of the past, your watch vibrates. It has something to say. Your superhuman efforts have been assessed by the Garmin gods:
I mean what the actual fuck? Are you joking? Who thought of this? Where’s my shit sandwich?
At these times I find myself with an overwhelming urge to discipline my watch. Like “listen here, if you don’t find a way to be more supportive I’m going to stop charging you and then we’ll see who’s unproductive”. But then I feel like this woman I saw in a meme once who was doing her best to teach a pelican a lesson and it’s at that point that I’m like okay Eva, time to move on.
My car’s safety features
You all remember my car right? I bought it a few years ago and then kitted it out ready for my year around Australia.
It did really well for those six weeks.
Anyway, the first time I drove it I had to take ten minutes to familiarise myself with all the buttons on the dash. Each button comes with its own acronym to make you feel like you’re about to mobilise an international aircraft. (I know I know, as if. The borders are closed). The range is extensive. You’ve got BCW, DAW, FCA, HBA, LKA, RCCW, ESS, PDW-F, PDW-R, and TPMS. I would like to speak to two of these if I may.
LKA, otherwise known as lane keeping assist, is an incredibly useful feature whereby the car decides it’s just going to steer itself. So as long as you’re driving like 80km/hr or more, you can take your hands off the wheel and the car KEEPS STEERING for you! I mean this is helpful right? I often feel the need to drive with my hands in the air.
But this is where it starts to go south. If the car does in fact start steering itself, it dings at you and this message comes up on the dash:
Drivers hands not detected, place hands on wheel.
If you fail to place your hands on the wheel within the next five seconds, it dings at you again:
Drivers hands not detected. LKA has been disabled.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if for some reason I have failed to steer my own car for the last 15 seconds isn’t that precisely the time for LKA to shine? Like if I’m enjoying my hands-in-the-air driving so much that I’ve now forgotten to actually drive, I just think this would be a really good time for it to take over. Pulling the pin now seems as useful as disciplining a pelican.
While I’m on it FCA is no better. This quality feature is meant to stop you flying up the back of someone and so is aptly named forward collision avoidance assist (so really it should be FCAA but whatever). Every now and then I’m driving along minding my own business, hands in the air, and suddenly FCA jumps in, slamming on the brakes lighting up the dash and alarming obnoxiously. And you know what happens? That’s right. It scares the fuck out of me and I nearly crash the car.
My Duolingo App
A few months ago I had to call the interpreter line at work, and this fabulously helpful individual translated for my patient and I was like holy shit that’s incredible I wish I could speak another language. Then I remembered actually I can half speak another language cause I learnt Hebrew at school (yes 22 years ago but whatever). So I downloaded the Duolingo app, paid the yearly subscription fee, and diligently ensured I completed my daily three minute Hebrew lesson.
Much like the trusty Garmin app the instant gratification was coming in thick and fast. I was jumping leagues, getting crowns, and earning XP points like no ones business. But then life got in the way for a bit and my quest to call myself bilingual came to a halt.
I was well aware of this, but just in case I was not, Duolingo was sure to keep me posted. I would receive daily reminders that it was time to complete my Hebrew lesson, which would prompt me to open the app just long enough to clear the notification and settle my OCD, but not long enough to actually complete a lesson.
I was quite satisfied with this approach, feeling some sense of accomplishment with my daily reminder management. The self-talk went something like this:
I mean seriously Eva, you could actually just delete the app and forget about it, but here you are standing strong in the face of a daily reminder of yet another thing you’ve neglected, keeping your cool, not reacting. Closing each notification one annoying red number at a time. Channelling Buddha yet again…
This approach was going great for about two months, until the other day. I woke up and took my phone off charge, scrolled through my notifications and read this:
“These reminders don’t seem to be working. We’ll stop sending them from now on”.
Oh. My. God.
I lay there staring at the phone in disbelief. I felt like the carpet had been ripped out from underneath me. I felt abandoned. Deserted in the middle of a foreign land with no one to turn to. I wanted to scream down the phone:
“Where are you going?! Don’t leave me! Come back!! I’m sorry! I’ll be better!” and then I remembered I was apologising to a piece of software.
Seriously what is actually happening here?!?! My heart was broken BY AN APP. THAT I PAID FOR. I mean I know these are unprecedented times and all but seriously this is just a little bit much.
And on that note, I would like to sincerely thank you for reading my entirely objective and not at all cynical commentary on daily life. Follow me for more super productive lockdown inspired ways to spend your time, including episode two of I’m in a mood, no doubt due for release in the not too distant future.
