Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Life without internet? no way!

I was in trouble the other day thanks to my penchant to pull long hours at the office and hogging every single bit of work (ok, ok, I exaggerate, but I'm allowed some literary license, no?). I felt disoriented, and when walking, I felt like I was walking with swimming goggles on.
First, my wife takes away the car keys. "No driving", she says, "until we know what's wrong with you and fix you up." So she drops me off at the hospital, and picks me up later.
I had to suddenly miss work, and it had to happen on the busiest day of the week, and my phone rang, and then rang again, and then rang again with all the cancelled appointments and the like.
I imagined my wife reaching for the phone and stuffing it into her handbag to keep the car keys company. No, no, no.. I terminated my calls and switched the phone off.
Stepping out of the clinic, I call up my office mates, and in a few minutes later, I bundle up at the back of their car and zoom off. After a good time with my friends, I figured I felt recharged. Well, to my horror, the next day when reviewing my bp trend, my BP peaked at the exact hour I spent with them.
The next day, well enough to drive, I stopped by the office to submit the paperwork, and within minutes, the swimming goggles came on. Ok, I took off and went home.
At home, the sight of my shiny black HP, no covered in dust due to 2 days of disuse, gets my fingers trembling. I reach out for the "on" switch and giggle nervously as the LCD display fires to life. An I hit the "outlook" icon and watch the progress indicator start to build as e-mails begin to flow in. at 5 percent done, my inbox was showing 10 unread mails; then 15, 20, 25, 30,... before all the mail arrived, my swimming goggles were back on.
The next day, at my doctor's office, I relayed this experience. And she says, "You are just like my husband,.." her voice trails of as my mind perks at the thought that I have found a sympathetic ally. Then she continues,".. I wouldn't just take away the computer, because you are going to check your e-mails on your phone; I'd tell your wife to take away the car keys, computer AND the phone so that you can rest".
Well, with those words, the swimming goggles came back on. 2 weeks without the office, internet and phone?
With that, I've decided a slight change in routine. I use the pc with no office software so I can still be on the internet but off the officework. My phone's call screening is activated so that all office calls are diverted elsewhere (its supposed to go to my voice mailbox, but I deactivated that a long time ago - thats a story in itself).
Because of that I actually had time to go to the gym, walk to the store and read a book. And the goggles are gone, too.
I wonder what that means.

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