Despite what she might think, I really do want to know my wife better. I can tell there are things she wants from me or needs from me, important things she doesn\u2019t know how to tell me. That isn\u2019t my objection to getting the app\u2014not really objection. My trepidation is, I think, giving my wife total insight into my mess. The past months or, if I am being honest, the past couple of years I feel like I have gotten further and further away from being the man\/husband I want to be. But that\u2019s also the thought that has me driving to the mall on a Sunday afternoon, going up and down the parking garage looking for a spot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I get to the store the greeter checks me in for the Imovation Station and asks me the nature of the issue. So I tell her about the app and how it’s pretty large and I still want to keep a lot of my other apps, which I start to list out to her, which is when she stops typing. She looks up at me with what I expect to be some absolute judgment, but she has a cordial smile as she asks me, \u201cSo, is this a memory issue?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes? I think. I’m not sure,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to put it down as memory.\u201d\u00a0After she makes sure there isn\u2019t anything else going on with my Imbed, she stares intently at my face as she updates the photo in my customer profile and tells me they\u2019ll send a message when my Imovator is available to help me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Available to help me. I spend some time walking around the store looking at all the latest gadgets they\u2019re selling to augment our Imbeds. I don\u2019t know what was so wrong with phones that we needed something more. It\u2019s kind of like the appointment at the Imovation Station. At home I select the soonest available window, I show up 15 minutes early to check in, and I\u2019m still probably waiting an hour or more until someone is available to help me. It\u2019s the same problem, just more steps.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t really surprised when my wife \u201cgifted\u201d me a subscription for a couple\u2019s mindfulness app. Sponsored content has been coming up in her social media feed for a while now. You might have seen them. There will be a series of couples (often young, always attractive) doing one-sided interviews where they talk generally about how their relationship was transformed thanks to the app. Transformed. All interspersed with generic clips of couples jogging or cooking playfully together or folding the laundry while smiling like lunatics.<\/p>\n
When I try to temper my wife\u2019s expectations, she asks me why I have to be so negative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worth a shot at least,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
What I don\u2019t say, what I feel like I shouldn\u2019t say, is that I don\u2019t see myself in any of those couples. I don\u2019t think our problem is that we\u2019re not exercising enough together. Maybe there are things that go beyond what the app is meant to handle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t thirty minutes before they message me to make my way to a station where I meet my Imovater. He stares blankly for a moment as he does a quick name and visual confirmation and starts reviewing my issue. I can\u2019t tell if this guy is my age or slightly older or very much younger. I want him to be younger than me, so my tech issue won\u2019t be so embarrassing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry if this issue is kind of basic,” I say to the Imovator, \u201cI\u2019m not a technology guy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo problemo, that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for. And besides, I always tell people it\u2019s better to be safe than sorry. We had a woman bring in her boyfriend just last week. He\u2019d watched some how-to videos and accidentally reset his Imbed to factory settings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Hey, If it\u2019s alright with you, I\u2019d like to physically connect.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pause. It\u2019s not totally alright with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m working with people\u2019s memory files I like to use the physical connection in case wifi gets buggy with all the competing signals, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d I say and take the cord, inserting the usb-x connection in the port behind my left ear. \u201cBut the guy, you can fix that, the cloud?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, get this, the dude couldn\u2019t revert to a backup on the cloud, because he\u2019d canceled his subscription when he hit the basic limits. Seven years of his life, man, completely blank-slated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTabula rasa.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh, yeah. For sure. So, as I look at your system, everything\u2019s updated, looks like your processor speed is good, you\u2019ve just got a ton of stuff taking up space that doesn\u2019t need to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ask him what he means, and he shows me that what\u2019s taking space really aren\u2019t the other apps. It\u2019s decades of videos and photos and text messages all the way back to when I was in college. I tell him I don\u2019t want to lose them, and he kind of laughs and tells me, dude, that\u2019s why we have the cloud. Yeah, if I want to pull up something from the cloud it\u2019s another step, and it might take a second longer to process, but even if I\u2019m in, like, the middle of the Sahara desert, I\u2019ll still be able to retrieve it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are satellites everywhere, bro. We\u2019re more connected now than we\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if I don\u2019t like that option, he tells me, I can delay the inevitable storage problem by getting an external hard drive for all the old data that I probably never look at anyways, \u201cOr you just don\u2019t download the app.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is trying to solve this problem, the system problem. And those are the options. But they don\u2019t solve my problem.<\/p>\n
Which I don\u2019t think is his fault.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The whole process of exporting my old data to the cloud and installing the app takes a little under fifteen minutes. My Imovator tells me once I\u2019m on the same wifi as my wife, the apps on our Imbeds will pair and then everything should kind of take their course from there.<\/p>\n
He confirms with me that there are no other issues with my Imbed and marks the session as resolved. He gets up to go and stops, turns back to me, and says, \u201cIf you can, please complete the survey I just sent you, my name\u2019s Ahmet.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I drive out of the mall parking garage, I fixate a bit on Ahmet\u2019s story about the guy who got blank-slated. I try to imagine what that would be like. If that wouldn\u2019t be easier in a way.\u00a0 Burn the ships. Give up the past.<\/p>\n
But then what?<\/p>\n
I think about my dad, the way he is now. Nothing but golf apps. His entire system. He\u2019s retired, of course. But that\u2019s who he\u2019s become. We\u2019ll go for dinner with my parents, my wife and my mom will talk a river, and I\u2019ll turn to my dad. If I ask him what he\u2019s been up to lately, he\u2019ll share a video of his backswing with brightly diagramed instructions to fix his hook. If I ask him if he\u2019s happy, he\u2019ll tell me how many strokes he\u2019s statistically over or under his handicap on courses he\u2019s never played. If I ask him if he ever wishes he\u2019d done things different. Maybe that\u2019s unfair. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve never asked him that.<\/p>\n
I wonder if I could do that, replace everything with work or fantasy football.<\/p>\n
Before I know it, I\u2019m driving down my street and I can feel my pulse quicken, my breath shorten. I pull into the driveway and my Imbed syncs with our house wifi.<\/p>\n
Pairing\u2026 the app says<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what this will do to us.<\/p>\n
Pairing\u2026<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how she will feel when she sees.<\/p>\n
Complete.<\/p>\n
A list appears of audio\/video clips under \u201cemotionally charged occurrences.” I realize it is a record of our life these past months. We are watching TV or in the middle of a fight, at dinner with her friends or looking at a pregnancy test, and next to each there is a one word description.<\/p>\n
She is frustrated. She is angry. She is sad. She is lonely. Giddy, bitter, remorseful, lonely, hopeful, shattered, lonely, coping, angry, empty, lonely, lonely.<\/p>\n
The app pings that I am experiencing my first emotionally charged occurrence.<\/p>\n
It asks me to describe how I am feeling.<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t know what to put, except, sorry.<\/p>\n
I am so sorry.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when I see my wife open the door to our house. She steps out onto the landing and she looks at me parked in the driveway of our home. She looks at me and I can see now she is crying. And I am crying. And I don\u2019t know whether this feeling is coming from her or if it is coming from me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The tech guy says, “Everything\u2019s updated, looks like your processor speed is good, you\u2019ve just got a ton of stuff taking up space that doesn\u2019t need to be there.\u201d I ask him what he means, and he shows me that what\u2019s taking space is decades of memories all the way back to when I was in college. I tell him I don\u2019t want to lose them, and he kind of laughs and tells me, dude, that\u2019s why we have the cloud.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3530],"tags":[719,52,1303],"class_list":["post-20234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-flash-fiction","tag-marriage","tag-parents","tag-technology","writer-brandon-forinash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20679,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20234\/revisions\/20679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}