April Fools’ Day, 2016: A Stimulation Junkie Waits for a Second Grandson

The impulse to check my iPhone has been wicked lately. Of course, today I have good cause.

This very instant (10:42 a.m.) a text message from wife Kathy landed: “Contractions are picking up.” Daughter Elena is the contractor, and grandson Killian Davis Thompson is the contractee. I suppose that would be the arrangement.

The previous update rolled in at 9:22: “They just broke her water. All is well.”

Present circumstances are compelling, but I’m checking my iPhone now only a little more often than usual, which is idiotically, pathetically, embarrassingly often. It’s as if the 4.7-inch screen—yes, I looked up the dimensions on the devise itself—will give me what I’m after, which is . . . what?

I could say that I want to calm spiritual restlessness or escape mortal ennui, but the truth is mundane and unflattering and, I believe, pandemic. I’m so confident of the affliction that I won’t bother confirming the commonality of what follows with even a whiff of evidence.

I’m a stimulation junkie. And I don’t like it one bit. Seriously, I’ve got some work to do. How can a middle-aged man who has practiced prayer-meditation for over twenty-five years be so easily and frequently uncentered?

For the last few days, Kathy and I have dog-sat Layla, Elena and son-in-law Matt’s yellow Lab, who is affectionate, but as tranquil as a panicked doe. On our afternoon walks, Layla zigzags as though she is fleeing gunfire. The point: sometimes my soul looks like my grand-dog, aquiver with indecision about where to sprinkle her next droplets of pee. I’m looking wildly about for nothing in particular, or so it feels.

11:39, and I just checked for updates, even though my iPhone plays a come-hither, noir saxophone wah waaaah when Kathy sends a text. But, hey, I might not have heard.

In fairness, updates are always tapping me on the shoulder or landing like mosquitoes on my ankles. Heaven forbid I should miss something.

I have 568 Facebook friends, which means at any moment a photograph of food porn or an unsexy kissy-lips selfie might show up. Fortunately I have enough self-control to shut off the bee boop alert for each new post.

I don’t do Twitter because the whole hashtag lingo is lost on me. Thank God for small blessings.

But, really, these early years of the 21^st century conspire to distract, rush and over-stimulate all of us who let technology and the media govern our habits. Consider:

• Not only is patience often unnecessary, it’s downright discouraged. Used to be you had to endure a week of suspense and torment between episodes of your favorite television show. Now with enough Doritos and moxie, you can cram a whole season’s twists and turns into one calendar day.
• I admit it, I’m a Pandora fan. Sadly, my tolerance for a song that gets off to an unappealing start is low. If it’s bland, I hit the skip button. During my teenage years, we Erie kids had WJET 1400 am or K104 fm. If both were playing clunkers, we had to wait it out, commercials, news, and all.
• Credit cards: the black holes of impatience and impulse. Why plan and save?
• Back to my iPhone: last night at the Coleman house we wondered if Steve Buscemi was, indeed, the voice of Templeton the rat in a film version of Charlotte’s Web. Shazam. We knew in seconds.
• My MacBook Air, at my spoiled fingertips right now, dumps most of the information I need in my lap, without a drive to the library and an interrogation of the card catalog.

And so on. It’s hard to imagine what harm there might be in getting what I want when I want it, but I think the pace is injecting my disposition full of adrenaline. When nothing is going, when my head is left hanging with “shave and a hair cut . . . ,” I bob my leg.

This is not good—not for me, not for us. Get ready to roll your eyes, but I suspect that our collective stimulation addiction has fueled the rise of at least one presidential contender, Donald Trump. I keep asking myself why his frightening behavior isn’t blasting him out of contention for the highest office in the land.

Why? Because every day he stimulates us out of our wits. What will the twit Tweet next? Stay tuned. As long as he accumulates delegates, there’s no way we can get bored.

But enough of this sad digression. It’s 12:32, and I’m jonesing for Kathy’s alluring sax and a second grandson.

My Killian is about to arrive! Now that’s a great reason to stare at an iPhone screen. But a goof gnawing on a ghost pepper? Or television news bloopers from 2014? Or worse? Why do I cram my head full of such diversional potato chips?

Later on, when I kiss my grandson’s head and smell the perfume all newborns wear, maybe he’ll birth a new grandfather—a man who enjoys deep breaths and looks at the sky.

Come on, kiddo. You’ll still have the wise before-world on your skin when I hold you. Share a little with your Pop.