Tamagotchi: c'est moi

When they first came out, I bought one for The Kid and, also, one for me. I love gadgets or -- called another way, a nicer way -- tools that are specific to their purpose. It’s the same reason that I love sitting in the exam room before the doctor comes, and admiring all of the labeled drawers and compartments, knowing the right tool is right there, waiting for the hand that needs it.

And cute little Japanese gadgets? Well, forget it: I really can’t resist.

So The Kid and I both had a Tamagotchi, you know, that little egg-shaped virtual-pet toy that came out in 1996 and was really my early training for an iPhone. For a period, our energies, my son’s and mine, were entirely focused on keeping our faux baby alien-creatures alive, remaining attuned to their needs for “food” and attention and changing, “nurturing” them through various stages of life.

This was before we had an actual dog.

The Kid would have been 10, which puts me at 34. Yes, 34. I remember wearing my white Tamagotchi on a slim pink ribbon around my neck, even at work, even in meetings. This was easier, naturally, because I worked for what was, at that time, an eclectic non-profit, one in which personal eccentricities were the norm, the regular deemed odd. I remember one particular all-day affair, possibly a management retreat, and sneaking surreptitious peaks at this inanimate animate being hung around my neck, not really all that dissimilar from all the screen-gazing we all do nowadays.

Oh, we did care about those Tamagotchis. For a while.

Now our little cyber-eggs are somewhere in the house, probably kicking around in a drawer with an early cell phone, fat as a French roll, and a flip phone, and various incarnations of Palm Pilots (complete with stylus), and an early iPod or two.

Like I said, gadgets: I love ‘em.

Tamagotchi got replaced. And now its replacements have been replaced.

Most recently by the Fitbit Force bracelet which I clasped around my left wrist yesterday, after weeks and weeks of thinking about it. Birthday money helped me take the plunge (though my mother’s admonition, “that check was not for you to spend on some kitchen-thing, but on something for yourself,” as if it were a restricted grant I would have to report back on, complete with financials, did not, not really).

So now I’m the animate creature made somewhat inanimate by this constant tracking of my every move, even down to my sleep. And I love it.

It’s like I was heading here all the time, to this future/now when a device would tell me that I slept exactly 6 hours 51 minutes last night, interrupted 5 times for 11-minutes’ worth of restlessness. At 4:30am, the wristband woke me gently with a vibrating alarm, which I love because it means I can get up and leave the bedroom without waking up my husband. Unreasonably as hell, I don’t want to hear Good Morning from him in his cheery voice at that hour, because I want him to stay sleeping so I can work. The vibrating alarm is just the ticket to slipping out unnoticed, feeding the dog, and doing my words.

I tell myself that the Fitbit is consistent with my scientific approach to everything, although perhaps “scientific” is a little bit lofty for what’s going on here. Except if this isn’t citizen-science down to its essentials, then I don’t know what is, me collecting data on my own self, narcissist, navel-gazing biology of the most basic sort. Calories in, calories out. Steps taken. Miles traversed on the power of my own two feet.

Basic and totally awesome.

Knowing what happened to that poor, abandoned (dead) Tamagotchi, I am aware that at some point this bracelet is headed to that drawer, the land of misfit, outgrown gadgets. But for now, oh how I am enjoying the care and feeding and nurturing of this new creature – me – and all the tracking, logging, charting that will ensue.

Was this the plan all along? I mean, the Tamagotchi was started as a game for teenage girls to give them a sense of what it would be like to care for children. And here I am, grown-up for real now that I’m past 50 and have an adult child, trained by life and all those gadgets for the ultimate game: taking care of me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some stairs calling my name.

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