A brief guide for people emotionally monitored by technology
As is already known on two continents, I’ve started swimming. Little by little. When I finally figured out that I could wear my watch in the water, I also found out precisely how much I swam because my watch is smart. Very smart.
At first, we had a few… misunderstandings, just as we did with my walking.
When I take the dogs out, I set the watch to Walking mode, subcategory No Ambition (or Open). But the speed of dog-walking – a jittery zigzag between Baloo’s favorite bushes with Gicu as his backup – is not something the watch can process without panicking. Every now and then it asks me, skeptically: “End Workout?”
“No,” I say, and we continue.
Six vigorous pees, two poops, and twenty trees later, when we stop to greet the goats, “End Workout?”
“NO!”
“Then get walking already!,” the watch vibrates, exasperated.
It reminds me of my father’s motivational shouts that have followed me all my life: “Move it! Come On! Don’t Sleep!“
Usually, after about 45 minutes, the watch gets bored and says, in a condescending tone: “Your workout summary is…”
That’s when I politely but firmly say: “Go f..k your mother, you stupid cow!” (I’ve decided the watch is female, Siri’s younger sister.)
Baloo stops, perplexed: “What did I do, hooman?” (He assumes everything is about him, and he’s usually right, just not now.)
Still, the truth is harsh: 30 minutes for one mile is a lot. For a human. I should write to Apple to suggest a new Walking Mode: Dog Walking, Open Distance.
At the pool, things change. No dogs, no trees, just water, swimming neighbors, and self-given pep talks. I set the watch to Indoor Pool, No Ambition, 25m pool length. And I swim and swim and then swim some more and wonder why I suddenly get flashbacks from fourth grade when the elastic on my swim trunks snapped and the coach yelled at me to keep going.
Out of boredom, I’ve started studying the others at the pool. It’s mostly the same people every day. I don’t know their names, but I recognize them by, let’s say, some defining traits.
We’ve got the Strollers: two men who don’t swim, they just walk up and down the pool, each taking up a lane. After two laps, they stop and talk. A lot. If you swim in their lane, they don’t mind. But they don’t exactly invite you in either.
Then we have the Floating Four who offer a live demonstration of Archimedes’ Principle and are constantly testing the pool’s overflow system.
Steffix McChunkix
Image generated with ChatGpt
(part of my own AI library)
There’s the lady with the pink cap and nose clip who slowly swims free style, the model-shaped Asian woman with a black cap who swims nonstop for half an hour, the rocket-speed Korean, the older man I nicknamed “The Hose” (saw him in the locker room – ah, the male envy), the 6-foot-3 American who checks his pulse at the end of every lap, the young man who talks to himself and uses only the spa (or whatever the water filled bubbly hole is called), and some other non-regulars…. A 25-meter pool encompasses at least 14 parallel realities.
Today, a middle-aged lady was swimming sideways. I smiled, remembering Dad and Uncle Pupi. We synced up at the end of a lap, and I told her about my father. She laughed and asked where my accent was from. I’m so used to that question it barely bothers me anymore.
Of course, she had a relative in Hungary. Or somewhere in East Europe. Just like two of the three contractors I talked to over the weekend had relatives in Romania. Maybe the third one did too, but he spoke so fast I couldn’t understand a word. Or maybe he wasn’t even speaking.
At one point, the watch again, out of nowhere: “End Workout?”
I almost fainted in the pool!
“NO!, I’m not DONE!“
“Then Move! Come On! Don’t Sleep!“
Discover more from Nea Fane - Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US
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Nea Fane - Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US 