POTATOES GON' POTATE

OCTOBER 2011

The 21st century couch potato

Ena Goquiolay

My IPhone alarm blares rudely as I struggle to open my eyes sealed shut with flakey rheum.  It’s 7:30 am on a Monday morning and I wage a mental argument with myself – part of my morning ritual. Should I snooze for another 30 minutes? The sun seeps through my sheer white curtains.  The room is a tad warm: I’m starting to break a sweat under the duvet.  The me that wants to wake up opens up the Twitter app on my phone, hoping “good morning!” tweets will inspire me to get going.  When I try to balance my self on two feet, my head swells.  I walk about six steps to the bathroom. I wash my face, pry my eyes open, and brush my teeth.  My entire body is sore; I worked 25 hours on the weekend serving at a busy Filipino restaurant.  I dry up and and take out my Moleskine. There is not a blank space in my weekly planner for today’s to-do list.  This may be a problem – the week hasn’t even started yet.  

On July 15, 1976, the term “couch potato” became known to us when Tom Iacino, a member of an infamous South California group that took pride in vegetating in front of the television and eating junk food, uttered it. They were called the “Boob-tubers”.  It was a cool and laughable fad back then. Now, new generations of “boob-tubers” exist and have developed unhealthy relationships with computers and cell phones as if gadgets are human companions. I’m not a workaholic, but I’m certainly not a couch potato. Simply, I like to keep busy.  I never want to be bored.  Plus, the pressures of being the eldest of three does not exactly make me the best candidate for deadbeat couch potato shenanigans in our home. Laziness brings out wrath in my parents, so keeping them happy means hard work. 

First on my list is to walk our bundle-of-joy beagle, Yoda.  Possibly the only structured and rigorous physical activity I will get all day. I bring my IPhone along to keep track of time.  I take advantage of my convenient data plan and check my emails while Yoda and I walk into the neighbourhood trail.  Though I have control of Yoda with his leash, he is doing most of the walking; he pulls me into my own heavy steps as I scroll through my emails.  The minute Yoda does his business, we turn around and head home.

By now, it’s 8:30 a.m.  I quickly put my hair up in a low bun and give my swollen morning face a 15-minute makeover.  I head out the door, jump into my 1996 Toyota Corolla, and proceed with a five-minute drive to the RogersTV studio, where I’m doing an internship.  I arrive and I park at the “visitors only - no employees allowed” parking spot - it’s closest to the entrance. Heck, I’m a volunteer. I’m paid with the promise of experience, new skills, and another line on my resume that will desperately scream, “Pick me!”  Feeling a little guilty that an actual guest might have to park 50 metres away, I head into the building.  I sit in front of a computer screen on a huge office chair/ recliner on wheels, under dim lights, some flickering.  How do people stay awake during 9-to-5 shifts?  I complete my script in an hour’s time - I completed most of it over the weekend - and head to class. It’s now 10 a.m.; I have a class at 1 p.m at Ryerson University, roughly an hour commute.

The drive to Finch station is about 20 minutes long. Five minutes in, I feel my stomach churn.  This gross throwing-up feeling in my throat must be because my belly is nothing but air.  I drive to the nearest gas station Tim Horton’s drive-thru. Without budging from my seat, I order a medium iced cappuccino and a maple-pecan danish.  This is my routine.  Short sleep, long days, busy work schedules, caffeine, and junk food. I strive for my life to be fast, progressive, and ambitiously efficient.  To make my busy schedule simpler, coffee and doughnut shops, fast food restaurants, banks, and pharmacies have been time-savers, making it possible to run errands and have meals without ever leaving my car.

 I place a straw into my frozen coffee drink and take a bite out of my stale tasting danish.  I proceed to drive to the subway station.  I park in a grocery store lot to avoid a $7.50 fee.  I walk two pedestrian crossings to get to the Finch subway hub.  I rush into the station, hands full with my Tim Hortons breakfast to-go, and find the best seat. I sit down and put my heavy messenger on the floor. Already breathing heavily from joining the commuter rush into the subway, I eat my danish and sip on my frozen cappuccino on my 40-minute ride. 

I get off at Dundas and walk six minutes with a crowd of students to my six-hour photojournalism class.  I take a seat in a computer lab, facing six hours of blue glare. We get a lunch break; I head to the nearby grocery with classmates to buy snack. I head to the closest grocery store with other students to buy snacks that can keep me awake for the rest of our photography class.

I feel like a blobby vegetable root to be pulled from the soil.  I feel like a member of the proudly unhealthy couch potatoes of the seventies.  Though I haven’t watched a television show in months, I’m the boob who sits in front of the flat computer screen and best friends with my cell phone.  I feel lazy and can hardly contain my yawns.  I stare blankly at the computer screen and think about everything else I could be doing besides sitting in a six-hour show and tell photography class. 

At this point of the day, I’ve transferred myself between one bed and four different chairs.  The more I do, the more I do them sitting down.  Has my willfulness for productivity turned me into a couch potato?  Psychology Today refers to this feeling as “burn out”.  Like a match that has been burned out by its own flame, people who work to the point of exhaustion are the same. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, Tony Schwartz, CEO of the Energy Project, examined work performance in relation to level of productivity. Schwartz says, "we believed that burnout was one of its leading causes, and we focused almost exclusively on helping individuals avoid it by managing their energy, as opposed to their time. Time, after all, is finite. By contrast, you can expand your personal energy and also regularly renew it."  He explains that understanding your supply of energy can help you learn new strategies wherein you are able to conserve it without having to undermine your productive abilities.

After class, I head to another lab to complete an assignment: another computer screen under cold fluorescent lighting. I leave, exhausted, at about 9 p.m.  My makeup has rubbed off.  You can see my blemishes and eye-bags and my face is producing enough natural oil to spark another Gulf War.  With my smudged eye makeup, I look like some nocturnal rodent.  I have irritating temporary rashes on my behind from sitting too long.  But hey, only an hour and half commute home and I can rest.

             Back in my car, I drive-thru a McDonald’s and order a McChicken meal with large fries and iced tea.  I chow down it down at home and boy, I’m lovin’ it. Sitting on my bed, feet under the warm duvet, struggling to keep the lettuce in my burger and strategically squirt the perfect blob of mayo on every fry.  I check for emails one last time, update myself on trending Youtube videos, and tweet about my long day. I fall asleep content - half afraid that with a full stomach I won’t wake up. Tomorrow again, I think to myself, as I drowse of thinking about my list of untouched to-dos. Some of them have been on the list for a month. A fly lands on my pillow. I should really clean my room.