Commentary: Obsessions

People adopt little infatuations that snowball into addict-level fetischizing. Happens all the time. Just go watch any Quentin Tarantino movie. Throughout this article, I hope to document the absurdity of said habits.
You take a look around (though not for too long— don’t want to miss the last five seconds of that Instagram story), everyone’s attached to their phone, figuratively and literally. It’s no secret. An MRI of your brain would reveal an Apple-shaped right frontal lobe. It’s like Minion in Megamind: if you make a nice circular incision around the forehead and lift up the lid to reveal your cerebral cortex, an iPhone X is probably living in there, floating in brain fluid, like the CPU of a computer.
Which, speaking of CPUs, Elon Musk released his “Neuralink” a few moons ago— not sure why he bothered. We already had it: the iPhone. Wall-E is becoming reality sooner than anticipated. Your phone is your pet, you know, you take it on little walks… soon enough you turn into the Hunchback of Notre Dame with your neck bent over in that position for so long. You’re essentially Flex-Sealed ™ to your iPhone. You’re a moth to a light— nothing is going to break that downward gaze. I’d wager my entire retirement savings that if, in broad daylight, a UFO landed atop Hubbell, and the aliens got out, and striked a ceremonial gong, and used a megaphone to address Helmick passerby, no one would look up.
If your phone is the heart, the coffee shop is the lung. I never understood the hype with coffee shops. They crank the thermostat so high you feel like you’re in a sweatbox. To me, the coffee smell makes the list for top five undesirable scents, the number one being B.O. You walk into a Starbucks, the potent odor hits you as if it were a pull-door you tried to push. Seriously, even an anosmic bloodhound from Australia could smell the noxious fumes emanating from Smokey Row.
Coffee shops are asylums. You get done with a marathon, soaked in sweat, and think to yourself, “I could use a cappuccino-mocha-frappè-latte-macchiato-americano right about now.” Never mind your bromhidrosis— rancid body odor. You walk in, no one bats an eye. You’re a chameleon. Among the host of other smells, your stench is a pea in a mattress. You fit right in.
A like on Facebook and a cold brew is good for a small dopamine hit, sure, but if you really want to be over the moon, order a package on Amazon. What happens until the day you receive that Gabriel-delivered package… that’s all background noise. The blessed cardboard box is paramount.
So it finally arrives. And at that very moment, your neighbor miraculously wins the lottery. He comes screaming all the way to your front door, pulsing with ecstasy: “I WON! MEGA MILLION! THE NUMBERS MATCH! I’M RICH!”
You: “That’s cute. Look, once you’re cooled off, mind giving me a hand in moving my Amazon package to the garage?”
Maybe you just received your vitamin supplement. People are very particular about their vitamin supplements. “I take Vitamin A, O, and X, and my Nose Elongator every other day.” You ever walked down the vitamin aisle at Walmart? Gives you the sense that you’re taking the wrong pills. Like— “This one says, ‘May boost sexual performance.’ 49.99 for a two-week supply. Well, if it’s expensive, it must be effective…”
We won’t even have to eat in the future. It’ll be like Brave New World, you know, all the nutrients you need in one pill. That’s the sense I’m getting here. Then there’s the Flintstones gummies you took as a kid; you chewed on those just because you liked the bottle design and the TV show. Next thing you know, movie theaters will be selling that stuff as concessions. It’ll replace Sour Patch Kids or Hot Tamales. “You grab a box of Flintstones Gummies?” “Of course. Oh, good. The previews have just begun. Maybe I can finish these off before the lights dim…”
With all this vitamin talk, I’m even beginning to feel some FOMO. People recommend supplements like they do doctors: “You try the Nails Now? I heard they keep your toenails from blackening. Don’t want to have ugly toenails.” Hell, with my luck, the minute I die, scientists will invent a supplement that prevents death.