25 ways my daily life would be different if the internet didn't exist
At 7 a.m. sharp my alarm goes off. I relish the sensation of my index finger depressing the snooze button—a real plastic device (1) linked to an electrical silencing mechanism. I am likewise silent as my mind transitions from sleep to wakefulness.
As the process nears completion, I grow aware of my surroundings: the milky sheet of sky, the muted sneeze of a neighbor. There is nothing I can do from bed (2)—no feeds to scroll, no notifications to dismiss, no photos of tropical locations I yearn to visit or people I long to know or evidence of my enemies experiencing undeserved material success. I yawn thrice and rise to make coffee.
The bubble of the coffee-maker echoes the rumble of my stomach, a sonic twinship I notice due to the lack of miniature electroacoustic transducers piping media into my ears. (3) Free of auditory litter, my mind roams ecstatically as I step inside the shower stall. After drying off with my favorite towel—I like ‘em thin and rough—I depart for the subway, which will arrive at a time for which I can obtain no forecast. (4)
On the platform I read a story by Ivan Turgenev. "It makes one feel good to look at the clever little faces of healthy children,” Turgenev writes. I cast about for some healthy little children to look at and find a backpacked cluster.
Turgenev is correct.
There is time before work, so I stop at a small Taiwanese restaurant and, unable to translate the menu, (5) point at a random item. My order turns out to be an "American-style" breakfast, and what arrives is a cruel judgment upon the nation, though not an inaccurate one. There are two squares of hash brown, four triangles of toast, and two circles of pancake. I eat my beige octet at an outdoor table in the sun.
Having finished, I continue to the office. Since there is no way for my boss to get in touch with me outside of office hours, (6) I haven’t thought about work until the moment of touchdown and am brimming with excitement to dive in.
My job is to read and review books, which I receive in physical packages (7). It is remarkably easy to focus (8), because the technology of a paper book prevents multitasking. Today is a day like any other: I sit and take notes with a Pilot Precise v5 Rolling Ball "ultra fine" pen. (9) "Ultra fine" describes the thinness of the pen’s line as well as my opinion of the object, which I also use for making grocery lists and scribbling directions (10).
Soon I encounter an unfamiliar word in the book at hand. The word is boak. Having no recourse to an instant dictionary (11), I am forced to use context clues to decipher the word. It seems that boak might be a verb meaning “to vomit.” I make a mental note to confirm the hunch later, in the paper dictionary I keep on hand (12) for this purpose.
Even though the book hasn’t been published yet—I’m lucky to receive copies of manuscripts far in advance—I knew that other people must have obtained early copies too. These people have surely formed opinions of their own but there is no way to find out; no forum for sharing verdicts such as "Piece of shit; kill me now" or "Engrossing and unputdownable!" (13). I turn the pages in a vacuum and set myself the simple goal of noticing as much as possible.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that I work without interruption. (14) At noon a new coworker swings by to ask if I know where the bathroom is located, which I do. An hour later a box of donuts appears to celebrate the same coworker. Both of these interruptions are limited in duration, as well as pleasant and instructive (15): when the donuts arrive, my new coworker demonstrates an intriguing method of slicing multiple donuts into quarters with a knife and then building a Frankendonut out of four separate quarters. This, she explains, allows her to sample multiple donut flavors without risking a stomachache.
With so little to distract me (16), the words flow and I complete my review before the workday is over. (17)
On the subway ride home, I sit in a healthy upright posture, since there is no reason to incline my head at an awkward 45-degree angle (18). With little else to occupy my attention, (19) I eavesdrop on a pair of college students and learn that italics, as in slanted text, was invented in the Renaissance. Aboveground I call (20) a friend with expertise in this area to verify the eavesdropped fact, and he tells me that the students are generally correct. Interesting. I scribble a reminder with my pen to use the fact in a future piece of writing.
It is twilight when I arrive home and pour myself a glass of Kahlua—I keep the bottle in the freezer so it is bracingly cold at a moment’s notice—and sip while leafing through (21) the dictionary, where I am elated to discover that boak is, indeed, a Scottish slang term that means “vomit.” How satisfying! Having stored the word in my brain’s locker all day long, I feel confident that I will remember it. (22) Just to be safe, I order myself to use it in a sentence: “If a person drinks Kahlua to excess on an empty stomach, she may boak.” And just like that: memorized.
Time proceeds at its customary pace through the routines of dinner preparation and consumption, unhindered by stretches of zombie-like inattention or antic refreshing. (23) When the clock strikes eleven I slither into bed and fall instantly and decadently asleep (24)—a model of psychiatric health (25) destined for sweet and meaningful dreams.
