“I’m Bored”

The other night my husband and I are getting ready to call it a day and we are going through our nightly routine of removing our contacts, flossing and brushing our teeth, etc….you know, all those things they don’t tell you about when you’re a 20-year old reading the Cosmo “How to Get a Man” articles. 

We’ve finished up with our toilettes, he sets his toothbrush down, and he says, “I’m bored.”  I kind of laugh and say, “Bored?”  And he says, “Yeah, I’m bored.” 

It’s not a word you typically hear a full-grown man say about himself so, not being able to help myself, I laugh a little louder and say, “Really, you’re bored?”  “Yeah,” he says, “I think I’ll go camping this weekend.”  “But honey,” I say, “it’s Tuesday.  Do you really think you’ll still be bored on Friday?”  “Yeah,” he says, “I think I will.” 

Then I started to think about the last time I was bored.  I know I could easily turn this into a gender debate and think, ‘Well, of course he’s bored, he’s a man, and you know how men are.’  Or, ‘Well, as a mom I don’t have the luxury of being bored, I’m too busy doing every single thing around here.’  But the truth is, he does his fair share, and some days he even does my fair share!  So if we’re both doing our fair share (most days), and if we’re both busy, working parents of even busier, active teenagers, then how come he’s bored and I’m not?  Sadly, I have too much technology to be bored, that's how come.

First, there’s my iPhone, which, ironically enough, I don’t use all that much as a phone.  I do, however, use it to keep me from, well, from being bored.  Before I continue, let’s get one thing straight:  I’m not one of those people you see who is, as I say, ”married to her phone.”  You know, the ones you see who have it in either in their hand, or on the table, or wherever else it will fit and still remain visible at all times. 

If you were to see me out to dinner with my husband, I assure you, you would not see my phone (except for a surreptitious glance now and then to make sure our kids haven’t called).  Ditto if I’m out with friends. 

However, any and all car trips in which I am not the driver…I’ll be on my phone.  Long check-out lines…I’ll be on my phone.  Anything abnormal going on with the weather…I’ll be on my phone checking The Weather Channel App.  (My husband and I have a long-standing joke in which he’ll stand at the window and say, “Hey, Jane, check your phone, I want to know what the weather’s like right now.”) 

What, exactly, I’m doing on my phone is pretty much nothing…just poking around here and there on different apps.  My husband, however, uses his phone only for work, and at the end of the day he shuts it off and doesn’t think about it again until the following day.  I love him for this!  I shudder to think of us as one of those couples who go to the trouble of going out to dinner together, then stay glued to their phones, barely looking at each other the entire time!  (I’ll be honest, those people drive me nuts!)

Next, there’s my Facebook account.  As much as I enjoy Facebook, I’ll be the first to admit it’s a complete and total time drain.  Again, I’m not really doing anything on there.  Well, that’s not entirely true. I do post status updates and such, but I truly believe that there is no reason on God’s green earth for a person to spend more than, say, 15 minutes a day on Facebook; yet entire weekend mornings have seemingly disappeared while I sat dumbly just clicking away at pretty much a whole lot of nothing. 

My husband also has a Facebook account, but he’s not really on there.  In fact, I was his only friend for at least the first month after he joined; now he can boast having three whole friends!  (It’s kind of creepy when he logs on:  it’s all my stuff!  It’s like he’s logged onto my account or something.)

As with his phone, my husband thinks of computers primarily as work tools, and as such, he’s not really willing to spend much of his free time on one.  I, on the other hand, can spend a scary amount of time just Googling away. In fact, when I thought of starting this blog, I headed straight to Google and started typing away...successful blogging, pros and cons of blogging, how to get people to read your blog…you name it, I Googled it.      

And finally, there’s my Kindle.  Now you might be thinking, ‘But that’s really just a book.’  And that’s true, but you can go back and forth between books, magazines, blogs, etc., so while it’s a book, it’s a book with distractions!  So when I have exhausted everything on my iPhone, and when I have creeped and stalked around on Facebook long enough, then I can go and play around on my Kindle.  It’s a never-ending cycle of technology.  (You’d be proud of me though…I am resisting the iPad temptation because I know the last thing I need is another gadget…besides, I’m really holding out for a MacBook!)

Whereas I was at first started by my husband’s statement about being bored, I now find myself being envious.  I think it might be a good thing to be a little bored now and then.  I think it might be good to get tired of staring at the same four walls and want to get out and spend some time in nature.  In fact, I think I might give it a try…just as soon as I check my Facebook account, my email, and the weather!