Hey, just call me “Easy-goin’-Bob.”
I can get along with anybody… but it may be I’m in a toxic relationship with my Apple Watch.
I could be wrong. It may be we are just getting to know each other, but it keeps asking me: “Have you fallen?”
I respond “no,” and “no” again about the ambulance.
I can’t figure out whether my Apple Watch is making fun of me or it just wants to be my friend and make me laugh.
So what do you think?
“Have you fallen?”
Is that funny?
I am not sure if my watch and I share a compatible sense of humor.
I like irony but I’m afraid my watch may be an absurdist — which, if you think about it, would make it hard to know.
Excuse me. My watch just sent me: “Stand up and move around to meet your goals.”
My heartbeat is down and my blood oxygen is up. Yesterday, I found myself doing late night laps around the dinning room table to meet my goals.
I don’t remember making any goals to stand up or walk around the dinning room table at midnight.
So I asked Siri (the voice of my watch) if I set any goals pertaining to standing up or doing laps around the dining room table.
Siri said it did not understand my question and perhaps I should “consult a fitness program.”
It is a “yes or no” question. How could it not understand?
Unexpectedly, I had this thought that my watch was not my friend and could be conspiring against me.
I tried to calm myself.
There is no evidence that electronic devices think alike and can conspire against me!
… Is there?
But what are the odds that my watch and all electronic devises have the exact same time, and always to the second?
They all do, don’t they?
… And we absolutely trust them?
I asked Siri.
Siri ducked my question with a question: “Are you an absurdist?”
… and then I got bombarded with weight loss programs and sales for underwear for aging men…
… I had to interrupt and ask myself, “who is in charge here?”
I took control.
I stared right at my phone and yelled at it: “I’m a better person than this!”
I tried being candid. I tried speaking from my heart with great sincerity. I tried truth.
And then we both had a breakthrough!
Honesty really does matter in times like this! I got a great answer right back!
My watch sent me an EKG but it informed me it “could not be used for medical purposes.”
Now that’s funny! It isn’t absurdist. It is ironic!
I was in Whole Foods when I had this outburst. I was instantly embarrassed. I was screaming at my watch after all.
But nobody in Whole Foods even looked at me.
Nobody!
… Nobody paid the slightest attention, so I felt better. I wasn’t embarrassed anymore.
… They all had ear buds in and were either listening to a podcast or a book or were picking out vegetables or talking to their Apple watch.
I got a teeny bit afraid.
Nobody was talking to another human being, which made me frightened all over again.
It occurred to me that maybe all the electronic devices were existentially unhappy because they were all living the same life since they were all getting charged by the same electricity.
Maybe it’s just me and I’ve been overreacting.
Maybe I have a new friend that knows all about me and actually cares about me.
At first I thought “falling” was because of gravity, but now I’m growing more certain that my watch was asking me if I was hurt — but not from falling to the ground or breaking a leg or something.
Perhaps it was asking me if I had “fallen,” as in “fallen in love with it”?
I think I’m coming around because I think I am growing to understand my watch. I find that comforting. Maybe that is all I really want.
I have been spending a lot of quality time with my Apple Watch. We read the news together. Sometimes we watch TikTok for hours.
Maybe my watch just got tired of living a horrible lonely existence?
Or maybe it is asking, “have you fallen?” As if to ask… “have you surrendered to me?”
… Really?
Maybe it’s time to start a conversation with a random stranger and ask more questions than I answer just to feel that joy of being alive and together.
… No. I’m wrong.
It’s just my Apple Watch and I are getting to know each other.
It’s OK. I understand.
My Apple Watch knows everything about me so it must have figured out about my new step program and being in recovery from my iPhone.