rabbit hole
It all starts with a question.
Who wrote the lyrics to “Me and Bobby McGee”?
Despite how busy you are, this question screams like a two-year-old having a tantrum in aisle six. Except it’s in your brain. It wants your attention, and it wants it NOW.
Who you gonna call? Well, Google of course.
Within seconds you learn that the song was written by Kris Kristofferson.
“Hmmmm … interesting,” you say out loud, yet mostly to yourself. “I’ll bet Julie doesn’t know this.”
Who’s Julie?
A friend from high school. Someone you haven’t seen in over 20 years because you probably have nothing in common anymore… except a shared memory that involves younger versions of yourselves smoking cigarettes behind a convenient store that no longer exists.
And so, you let your fingers do the walking and within a few clicks you’re on Facebook.
“Trivia time: who wrote Me and Bobby McGee?”
Feeling nostalgic, you tag Julie. A lifetime ago the two of you sat on your bed, belting out the lyrics with Janis Joplin singing backup vocals.
40 minutes later you climb out of the Facebook rabbit hole with cramps in your cheek bones and a brain filled with cat videos.
Overcome by a need to share the social love (because you’re generous that way), the pull seizes your attention once again, only this time it leads you over to Twitter.
Me and Bobby McGee was written by Kris Kristofferson and NOT Janis Joplin. Who knew? #trivia
Your stream fills up with eleventy thousand unrelated yet equally interesting Tweets and back you go down the rabbit hole.
4:19 p.m.
You hear a sudden growl. It’s your stomach. How do you react? By heading over to Pinterest. Within 13 seconds you find a quick and easy recipe for buttered chicken. With your eyes still on the screen and your fingers glued to the keyboard, you mentally high-five yourself. Dinner solved.
But wait! Could it be? Is this a board dedicated to the fine art of organizing utensils? And weren’t you just talking about this with… Never mind. YOU MUST CHECK THIS OUT.
6:42 p.m.
You emerge once again, slightly older yet much wiser, and the first thing you see when you glance out the window is a beautiful cardinal perched in the tree outside your window. “Stop! I MUST CAPTURE THIS MOMENT,” you say to your smart phone as you enjoy the view through its tiny 4.7-inch screen. Somehow this has become logical; regardless of the fact that your old-fashioned window – the one built into your HOUSE – provides a much better view.
*Click*
“Karen will LOVE this,” you think as you post the picture on Instagram.
Who’s Karen?
Karen is a woman from Australia with whom you connected… you don’t remember when or how… but you just KNOW she’ll love your bird picture. Somehow the fact that Australia also has birds doesn’t deter you. Again, logic 2.0 prevails.
Once more, your stomach yells at you. This time it’s joined by the chorus of your teenagers asking what’s for supper. Oh yeah, that buttered chicken recipe.
But first, you must check email.
With a fervent glare and synchronized fingers, you dive back down the rabbit hole.
The kids are complaining in the background, but you know that eventually they’ll pour themselves a bowl of cereal and the house will be quiet again. With 67 tabs open, that recipe for buttered chicken has also fallen down a rabbit hole.
Perhaps tomorrow, you say to yourself.
More from Mona Andrei
Mona Andrei
An award-winning humour blogger and the author of SUPERWOMAN: A Funny and Reflective Look at Single Motherhood (Cynren Press). Mona writes about everything from parenting to birds pooping on her car (on purpose!) to how much her kitchen hates her.
2 Responses
It’s scary how attached to all things internet we are. Having said that, I love all this information at the tip of our fingers. I’m also proud to say I knew Kris Kristofferson wrote “Me and Bobby McGee!”
Bwahahahaha! Have you been watching me?!