I had to skip posting last week because I was too annoyed by life to write anything. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. The most recent annoyance is Lil' S2. He's driving us bonkers. He keeps telling us he wants to do activities, and then he bails when it's time to actually go. He finds a weird reason why he can't do it (for swim lessons today he said the lanes are "too big"), and then he digs in on it -- like he becomes absolutely unmovable. There is literally no reward nor any punishment that can get him to change his mind.
What's worse is that he still wants the after-activity treat we usually let him have, and then throws a massive tantrum when he doesn't get it. It's such a prolonged, over-the-top meltdown that it makes me wonder if something else is going on in his life that we don't know about. I'll often gently probe about a problem at school with a teacher or another student or something like that, but he never says anything that makes me think I should pursue this line any further. (Also, school is one thing he doesn't complain about doing, thankfully.) Maybe this is just his personality or maybe he's just being six -- probably the latter, now that I write it out like that.
Part of it is our fault for putting too much on his plate -- and by our fault I mean S's fault. By her own admission, she signs our kids up for too many activities. One thing about her is that if she hears another family doing something interesting or enriching, her immediate thought is We should do that too. This type of ambitious attitude often serves us well -- it's why she's successful career-wise -- but it does have it's drawbacks. It creates a standard that's impossible to attain for any single family. You can't do all the things all your friends do. It's not trying to keep up with the Joneses; it's trying to keep up with a super family comprised of the best parts of the Joneses and the Jameses and the Patels and the Chens and every other family we see at the playground. But I think she's starting to realize this, because today she said she is only going to sign them up for one activity per weekend at most. I didn't respond, but I was thinking in my head You mean the exact thing I've been saying all along?
There's no need to take a hard line on this now. When you are getting flak from your children, the last thing you need is flak from your spouse. Plus, the boys bother her much more than they bother me. Lil' S2 in particular will follow her around to the point she has to hide in the closet just to eat lunch in peace. It's a vicious circle, too, because the best leverage we have is to take away screen time, but if we take away screen time then they just bother us more. It's hard to know when to use the carrot and when to use the stick and when to throw your hands up in the air because neither approach seems to be working.
It's all hugely exacerbated by the pandemic, of course. And things certainly aren't great right now. I check the stats every morning and although the rate of increase of infections is falling steadily (the derivative is negative), there still is an overall increase. We haven't peaked yet, and it's not clear when we will (hopefully in a week or two). The good news is that most people aren't getting really sick anymore (especially fully vaxxed folks), but the sheer number of positive tests is still a huge problem. A few classes at the boys' school have had to go virtual for a few weeks because so many teachers are out sick. Civil services in DC have been disrupted for the same reason. We didn't get our mail for an entire week.
It snowed here pretty heavily a week and a half ago, which added to the disruption (and another flurry is forecast for tomorrow afternoon). It put us in a bind with a bulk trash pickup. We put in the order to get rid of a broken desk, the mattress for a bunk bed we already gave away, and a suitcase with a busted wheel. We dragged it out to the curb the night before it was supposed to be picked up (no easy task; lifting is not one of S's strong suits), but it was still there at 9:00 pm the next evening. It was supposed to snow in the morning, so, after some deliberation, we decided to haul the trash back undercover, lest it all get buried in snow. So, we did that, and then a half hour later we heard a big truck roll by, stop, and then start going again. We don't know for sure that it was a bulk trash collection, but it probably was. So annoying.
But the ultimate annoyance came in the form of a treadmill I recently purchased. Once it became clear Omicron was going to affect my gym habits (I've only been once this year), I ordered a treadmill. I just wanted something simple and durable. I didn't want a bunch of features and screens where you can run the fields of Kenya virtually or take live classes or anything like that. But I also didn't want some cheap, rickety hunk of junk. So, I went on-line and found something modern, but relatively modest and affordable that got good reviews.
It came last Sunday. It was supposed to arrive between 12-3, but it didn't get here until 5:00, and then it took them an hour and a half to assembled it, so I was already kinda pre-annoyed. (But I'm so glad I paid the extra money for assembly. If it took two professionals that long to do it, I would probably still be trying to figure it out. Plus, they took all the packaging with them.) Nothing, however, could prepare for the annoyance I was about to endure.
After the assemblers left, I figured I would sneak in a run on my new treadmill, even though it was already pretty late in the evening. I put on my workout clothes, got my phone and a towel, and then went to turn the machine on. But I couldn't because there was a giant sticker over the display panel:
THIS MACHINE IS CURRENTLY DEACTIVATED
IN ORDER TO ACTIVATE IT YOU MUST VISIT THE iFIT WEBSITE
What the hell?! I just paid hundreds of dollars for this thing and now I have to activate it before I use it from my own basement! That's such fucking bullshit! Just let me run!
And it gets worse. The only way to get an activation code is to make an account and log-in, and the only way to make an account is to put in a credit card number and become an iFit member which costs like $20 a month. It's one of those things where you get the first month free, and then you're automatically charged after that, so you have to cancel it after you sign up, and that's exactly the type of thing I didn't want to do, and shouldn't have to do for a frickin' treadmill.
But I do it and get the app on my phone and an activation code and everything works, but I can only control the treadmill through the app. If I try to use the machine directly it just beeps at me and doesn't work. So, now I'm really hot, and I'm wondering if I made a terrible mistake and bought a treadmill that only works with an iFit* membership.
You know what's weird? Despite the name, I don't think iFit is an Apple product.
I do some Googling, and I find a very helpful video (thank god for YouTube!) from some random chick who shows me that if you hold down a certain button on the treadmill for 15 seconds, the blue tooth connection to your phone shuts off, and then the treadmill can be controlled from the buttons on its panel like you would expect.
I'm happy that I'm able to actually start running, but then I put two and two together: I didn't even need to make an iFit account or get an activation code. I didn't really activate anything. I just paired the treadmill to my phone. In order to use the treadmill like I wanted to use it all along, all I needed to do was turn off the blue tooth straightaway. When that's off, it functions like a normal treadmill. I was duped! It's so infuriating that they make you think you need iFit when you actually don't. And what am I going to do about it now that I know -- demand a refund and tell them to come pick it up?
I canceled my iFit membership, but they keep it active until the end of the free trial period, which makes me nervous. I have a sneaking fear I'm going to be charged anyway. One of my friends once got out of a gym membership by reporting her credit card as stolen so it would get canceled and the automatic payments to the gym would stop. Although, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they sent her to collections for doing that, so maybe it's not the best idea.
Anyway, the treadmill is working out quite nicely now that it functions the way I want. Although using it makes me realize how easy I am on myself when I jog through the neighborhood. My usual pace must be super slow, because I'm working hard on the treadmill, and I can barely do 9-minute miles. That's okay, it gives me a good goal: four miles in 30 minutes. I used to be able to do it fairly easily. Of course, that was 15 years ago. Now, I should probably just focus on using it for longer than a few weeks without pulling a muscle. Already my right calf is a little more sore than it should be.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment