On this day, the patriarch of that safety net also did not go to work, but under slightly different circumstances. Now, on the rare days that I had a day off from my duties as a school photographer I always made big BIG plans to enjoy my free time to the fullest. Maybe that's just how you are when you're young and still eager to explore your world, but I would have thought that Michel, my dad, might adopt the same attitude, it being the first full day I had been back in my childhood home. He should have just told me he was working from home that day, because that's exactly what happened. We barely interacted. I felt shy about stealing his attention away from his computer and when we did speak he was never fully engaged. I couldn't even coerce him to walk the dog with me.
When the rest of the clan came home, the full impact of how my family had become computer zombies struck me blind. My mom Heather, upon coming home, immediately sat down on the couch with her laptop and continued working. My sister Danielle, a junior at my former high school, joins her on the couch and calmly chisels away at her calculus homework. My dad, who has been sitting on the couch all day, continues to work on his laptop.
And me, what am I doing? I'm literally pacing in circles in the kitchen because I don't understand what's happened to my once social, witty, privacy-prying family. Before I moved back home I was anxious about having to answer everyone's questions about what my new goals were in life, what possible career paths I would be taking, how my LinkedIn profile was coming along, etc. I realized at that moment that these questions would only be asked in passing, perhaps during some brief car rides or the occasional dinner out where checking your email is still frowned upon (but not for long, I would guess).
Heather, in all her wisdom, piped up and said "Honey, I think your daughter is bored. She wants us to pay attention to her." BINGO! I perked up like a dog and waited, tail wagging, for my dad to respond. But he was too engrossed in his computer to even show a reaction on his face. Not even the observer of my plight could wrestle herself from her wireless hold.
I gave in. I joined the rest of my robotic family on the couch and wired in with them. In complete silence, we typed, we Skyped, we read line after line of discussion-worthy material. But no such discussion came. Even when my dad decided to turn on the TV and watch The Daily Show (digitally recorded, of course), his laptop did not take a backseat. I don't think he even watched the show. The only times I realized he was paying attention were when he skipped past the commercials with expert timing.
I went to bed that night and decided that my family needed to be saved. Not ctrl-S saved, but really and truly SAVED. Saved from the solitude that made them strangers in their own home. Saved from the devices that had become their vices. Saved from their fully fledged addictions to technology.
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