I Can't Be Alone With Myself
Surviving the subway commute without technology to distract.
I approached the entrance to the subway for my evening commute, AirPods jammed into my ears, avoiding eye contact with everyone. I was intently listening to a self-help podcast in hopes that it would teach me how to stop eating 47 Snickers bars in a row because I was having feelings.
That’s when my phone died.
A feeling of cold swept over my body.
It’s OK, Robin. Calm down. The phone’s probably just frozen.
I gently placed my thumb on the home button. Nothing. A bit more frantically, I pushed the side button. I held it down for a few seconds. Still nothing. I took a breath and tapped my fingers on the touch screen, willing it to light up, but it remained black and unresponsive.
This isn’t possible. My phone was charging all day.
Wasn’t it?
I pictured my desk with the phone on top of it, but no matter how much I squinted at the memory, I couldn’t see if the charger was plugged into the phone. Flashbacks swam about my head of me parking the car then walking three blocks before wondering if locked the car doors. Suddenly, I felt guilty for all the times I made fun of my mom because she taped yellow Post-It notes onto her purse with reminders like, “Don’t forget to pick up Robin!”
It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I have my Kindle. Sure, I’ll have to take my glasses out of my backpack and use my own eyes to read, but I can do that for one commute.
I rifled through my bag and cursed myself. Where was my Kindle?
Then I remembered the horrible truth. I had recently appointed myself the unofficial spokesperson for the Brooklyn Public Library’s audiobook collection, waxing poetically to anyone who would listen about how easy it is to get free audio books from the library and play them on your phone. I was such a fan of being read to by famous people that I took my Kindle out of my backpack and put it on my nightstand where it currently sat, collecting dust.
Damn you free audio books. Damn you.
I stood staring at the turnstile, wondering what to do next. I was completely unaware of the people lining up behind me. OK, I knew they were there, but I didn’t give a shit; I was in crisis.
I stepped to the side, and put my AirPods back in their case, that’s when I started to seriously panic. I could feel my skin. Was too tight for my insides? Also, I was definitely having a heart arrhythmia. I didn’t know exactly what an arrhythmia was, but I didn’t need WebMD to tell me I was having a stroke. The thought of being alone with myself for the next 13 stops was overwhelming. I couldn’t even meditate because my mediation app was on my phone.
For those of you who are wondering, “What the hell is wrong with this woman who can’t go 26 minutes without distractions?” I say let’s keep a couple of things in mind:
A. Please reread my earlier comment regarding Snickers bars. If I’m listening to a podcast to help me stop eating candy bars in a closet, then clearly I’m in a “place”, and the last thing I need is to be alone with my own thoughts.
B. Not to turn this around on you, but when was the last time you arrived early for a dinner date and left your phone in your pocket? Or rode in the car with the radio off? Or ran on a treadmill with nothing but the sound of your heavy breathing? When was the last time you went a half an hour without picking up some device? Without, pinging, slacking, tweeting, posting, reading, commenting, googling or capturing the moment digitally?
That’s what I thought.
I considered having a real talk with myself, but quickly realized that this was not the time to look at how addicted I’d become to technology. It was definitely not the time for the realization that I was no better than the millennials that I regularly make fun of for their habitual phone usage.
It was time for survival.
I walked onto the train and maneuvered my way into a seat. The train filled with commuters who were seriously in my personal space. I tried not to look anyone in the eye, lest I make a connection. Then I’d be forced to feel the guilt of getting a seat while the less fortunates stand, holding onto a pole for dear life as the driver pumps the brakes between stops for no apparent reason.
Keep your head down. Keep your head down. Keep your head down. I chanted quietly under my breath.
I stared at the edges of people’s jackets, but that gave the appearance that I was staring at the nether regions of the man whose junk was unfortunately positioned right in front of my face.
I looked up. And that’s when I saw a man wearing dark sunglasses and holding a cane. He was blind.
Fuck.
Now I have to give this guy my seat. Don’t get me wrong; I would happily give my seat to him. Well, not happily, I mean no one wants to be squished up against a rush hour crowd, touching the skin of strangers, but I’m not an animal, so of course I was going to give the blind guy my seat.
But it’s not easy to give up your seat. You have to offer, but not offend. I still get the feels (as the kids today say) from the time I offered my seat to a pregnant woman, and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Why do you think I need that seat?”
Turns out she wasn’t pregnant, just a touch chubby in suggestive areas.
I had to let the blind guy know he could have my seat. He was standing in the fray, so I might have to yell into the crowd. But how would he know I was talking to him? He had a headphone in one ear, so I was going to have to be loud about it. But what if some 30-something stockbroker on his way to Fi-Di says, “Oh, sure I’ll take that seat”? I’m not giving that jerk my seat.
I was going to have to reach over several passengers to tap the blind guy’s arm. But are you allowed to touch blind people? Or is that an offense that I don’t know about in my privileged sighted world?
Moments passed as I tried to figure out what to do. I could feel sweat trickling down the underside of my boobs, which is not an easily accessible area for wiping. I knew everyone was staring at me, judging the middle-aged lesbian in her Super Bowl hat (why did I wear this stupid hat?) who wouldn’t give up her seat for the blind guy.
None of this happens when my phone is charged. I sit and Morgan Freeman reads to me while I play Freecell and I never have to connect with another human being.
“Can anyone tell me what time it is?”
The blind guy needed to know what time it was.
“It’s 4:48.” I yelled in a too loud and too cheery voice.
I watched his face expectantly. This was the moment where I would be forgiven for not giving up my seat. I waited. He said nothing and pushed his way toward the door.
The car stopped. Piles of commuters (including the blind guy) left the train. Air returned to the car.
There was a ding, but just before the doors closed, a family of four joined my car.
The kids (clad in their private school backpacks) sat while the parents hovered, quizzing them.
“Beatrice, why don’t you use my math app while we do vocabulary. Bella, what’s the definition of sanguine?… Excellent. Maudlin?”
My fingers involuntarily rubbed the corners of my phone. I longed to snap their picture and post it on social media with snarky comments.
The parents moved onto Mandarin, and I sat with my arms crossed, shooting death rays at their heads. Believe me, people feel my death rays. Once, on jury duty, I spent the day in a poolroom staring angrily at the lawyers so they would know I didn’t want to be picked. During a break, the lawyer called me outside and said, “Ms. Hopkins, is there something wrong? You seem very angry.” I stared some more and was released from service. As I walked out of the courthouse, I felt equal parts triumph for getting dismissed and guilt for being an unwilling U.S. citizen.
Two stops to go. Was I going to make it?
I stared at the subway ads overhead and was visually assaulted by naked women selling period underwear and sets of bras and panties for just $24.95. That seemed like a lot of money to a gal whose attire consists solely of free t-shirts from her job.
There was a split screen ad with a Melania Trump-ish woman who in one picture was holding tangerines in front of her chest with a sad, sad face and in the other was holding cantaloupes with a 20,000-watt smile.
I made a tch tch tch sound (as I’ve been known to do since turning 40) and reached for my phone to take a picture of this offensive ad. I was going to report it to the MTA, and email the company to tell them they were stupid; big boobs aren’t awesome; they’re heavy, they sag and they get in the way of a good golf game.
But then I remembered my phone was dead.
As I attempted to do some serious fire breathing, I saw an ad prominently displaying the face of a balding, cherubic, and slightly creepy looking, LIRR employee named Greg T. who had “seen something and said something”. Was this supposed to comfort me? Guess what? It didn’t. Instead, I felt bile rising in my throat as I looked around the train to try to pick out which lunatic was going to release a toxic gas. I knew that if I somehow managed to survive the gas, I was going to have to eat one or more of my fellow passengers to stay alive while we’re quarantined underground. Obviously, it was going to be the helicopter parents.
I closed my eyes and sat as still as possible, desperately trying to tune out everything and everyone on the subway car.
The doors dinged. I opened my eyes. It was my stop. A single tear formed in the corner of my eye. I made it.
I scanned my body. My back hurt. I was grumpy, grouchy, and downright mad. As I walked home, I hoped someone would bump me so I could throw an elbow.
The second I got home, I walked to my kitchen, grabbed my phone charger from the junk drawer and plugged my phone into the wall. I walked out of the kitchen, stopped, turned around and walked back to triple check that the phone was indeed charging. I saw the lightning bolt next to the battery icon and released my breath.
Everything was going to be OK.
This story was originally published in Coffeelicious in March of 2017. I’m still this unhappy alone with my thoughts.