I finished dropping off my son from school, as I do every morning, because it makes me more attractive as a man. I pulled in my driveway, my skin aglow from parenting, and heard someone yell my name. He was walking his dog, and I decided to join him, partly because I’m a neighborly guy, partly because I hadn’t talked to him in a while, and mostly because he’s the famous actor Ben Schwartz.
Within a few blocks, I learned that Ben – because he’s charming, famous, and most importantly, has a dog – knows everyone in our neighborhood. One dog walker is a guy who owns the house seven houses from mine that I’ve been fascinated by for years. Because it has a plaque on the brick wall besides his driveway that lists the house’s name. And that name contains the word “Manor.” The manor lord offered me a house tour on the way home, so I deserted Ben like he was someone who didn’t voice Sonic the Hedgehog. The house and the host were all that I wanted it to be, and we exchanged numbers. It was exactly the kind of morning I imagined I would have all the time if I lived in a small town. Only we said the opposite stuff about Trump and property values. The second my new friend closed the manor door and I waved goodbye, I pulled my phone out of my pocket for the first time in over an hour, curious to learn about all the important things I had missed. I took my first step down his manor stairs, learned that the Dow Jones was about the same as it has been for the last two years, and stumbled. If anyone had seen my leg completely collapse, twisting my body downward like a marionette whose puppeteer decided to check his phone, they would have sent an ambulance. It made no sense that I didn’t fall. It was the kind of body-contorting accident that would have made Joe Theismann turn away.  I was sure I couldn’t make it down the steps to the curb, but I did. I figured I’d call my lovely wife Cassandra and embarrassingly beg her to drive 300 feet to pick me up. But, perhaps due to the intense ankle workouts that are part of my leg day, I was able to hobble home. When I examined by first sprained ankle, ballooning in a way that made me, for the first time, aesthetically admire my usual ankles, one thought lit up my brain: My phone tried to kill me. I realized this was part of a pattern of attempted homicide. There was the time my phone tried to get me in a car accident. The time my phone had me look at it during a fight with Cassandra, which enraged her. The time it got me to bid at a wine auction, which was more of a long-term play. Which is a form of murder my phone is committed to. It has tried to get my canceled through social media and fired by distracting me from work. It has derailed me from working out with texts it pretends need to be responded to immediately. It issues me tiny dopamine hits 144 times a day, thereby resetting my baseline release of dopamine to a much lower setting, making me anxious and depressed, because it is hoping I do its work kill myself, possibly by leaping off of the steps of a manor. I’d always wondered why people stay in abusive relationships. Maybe their partner is really good at giving step-by-step driving directions. Or can take great photos. Or always unlocks their electric car for them automatically. They can’t live without them. I tried grayscaling my phone for a few weeks, but all it did was make my phone try to kill me in a Hitchcock movie. I tried leaving it in my bedroom when I’m at home, but I keep needing it for something. So I’m living with a killer. I don’t know how long I’ll last. But the more time I’m out there taking walks with neighbors, the less time it has to get me. Thank you for paying to read my column. Wait: This is for the people who didn’t pay? Then I owe you nothing. You are the ones contributing to the end of my career. If you want to pay an exorbitant amount of money to get one extra post a month – which often won’t even be that good – upgrade to a paid subscription here:
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Thursday, March 7, 2024
My Phone Tried to Kill Me
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