i’m not leaving this chair all day
Posted on March 26, 2007
Filed Under kids, marriage, parenting, snark | 10 Comments
Like the Beavans, the Madmarriage family is undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts. Happily, one that does not require us to compost our feces in the living room. But we are doing our part by conserving personal energy. We burn fewer calories and require less nutrients by staying planted in our chairs. (Please tell this to the bag of M&M’s that have wandered in here and taken up residence beside my computer.) Soon the Madmarriage family may be able to live comfortably in a much smaller residence, not needing a living/family room at all. There is no need for congregation when we are all busy perfecting ways to communicate with one another without having to be in the same room. EVER.
As I type, My Better Half is busy Skype-ing me from the office computer. 
The office is about 12 paces from my laptop which is currently firing all circuits from the dining room. O and G are playing an inane game of “virtual playdate” with their Webkinz pets. G is masterminding a fuzzy monkey named Munchkin from a laptop in her bedroom while O is puppeteers Pancho, a beige Chihuahua, from the computer in the upstairs playroom. They call this “playing together” and I am too busy to contradict them. After all, there’s a lot less refereeing required if they never actually make eye contact. This goes for My Better Half and I as well. We get along swimmingly when we communicate only through emoticons. Apparently we’re not the only couple communicating via cyberspace. According to Boston Globe Magazine there are advantages to “remote” access. And I felt vindicated, reading about sane and educated couples navigating tricky conversations by e-mail. That is until the author states, “There is one important safety note: Ban the emotive smiley and frowny faces.” In my opinion that just takes the sport out of the whole thing. I take great pleasure in baiting My Better Half with the puking-face emoticon.)
If I’m lucky, I’ll not have to move from this chair all day. We can make collective decisions about whose ordering the pizza for lunch, whose turn it is to pick the afternoon movie and which computer the children will watch it on. I can also delegate via Skype. Declaring My Better Half the lucky winner of the right to perform the Sunday afternoon grocery run, all without ever leaving the technological cocoon I have created for myself. I remember my Mom used to yell from the kitchen. (Her sanctuary or cell depending on how you look at it.) She’d emit a sort of high pitched pleading sound that would travel from one floor to the next, searching out a listener to come take out the trash or set the table or feed the dog. Now I shriek silently from my computer, Skype-ing all over the house. Please, someone, go let the CAT out. I’m in the middle of a post here!
And reader, I suspect that while the Beavans, with their root vegetables stews and glaring lack of stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, seem alien and suspiciously insane, the Madmarriage family, all tucked in to their individual computer-age refuges, may seem very familiar indeed.
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