We Banned Screens On Our Holiday, Now We’re All Addicted To Heroin
By: Glenn Orgias
Tags: Humor, Phone Addiction, Family, Drugs, Satire

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

On our family holiday, we wanted to spend time together, so we banned screens. We entertained ourselves with I Spy and checkers, and by chewing on the insides of our faces and wondering if shooting up on drugs would help? And that’s how we ended up becoming a screen-free household! And also addicted to heroin.

It changed us. For example, before we banned screens our kids never wanted to do anything. We’d nag them to go out and get some fresh air, but they just wanted to vegetate and watch mildly amusing YouTube videos of dogs barking to Who Let the Dogs Out. However, once we banned screens and switched to scag, we found them outside all the time, lying face-down in the hotel’s flowerbed or binge-watching the resort’s lawn from close up.

My wife and I got closer too. We used to lay in bed ignoring each other while mindlessly scrolling through our phones. But once we banned screens, we focused on each other all night long as we snorted speedballs off each other’s naked bodies. And it was like — Fuck Yeah — now this feels like a holiday!

All the InstaEnvy, the FOMO, and the disappointment you feel when a friend’s tweet goes viral while yours remains unseen and unliked …that doesn’t matter anymore when you’re blissed out on smack with your family during a holiday resort sailing competition and your boat crashes onto the outer reef.

And that’s living, man.

And our habit of furtively checking social networking apps while talking to someone and zoning out of the conversation? That completely stopped. Now the only time we zone out is if we’re Od’ing and we need a shot of Narcan to the aorta.

And we felt safer too because our personal information was no longer being surreptitiously collected by faceless, untrustworthy tech giants. Our identities were more secure because our holiday heroin suppliers had no interest in our personal data at all, they just wanted to know: a) did we like to party, b) were we cops, and c) did we want to sell any of our bodily organs on the black market?

So we banned screens on our holiday, and man! We became interactive with humanity again. Like, before, if we had a problem with our devices, we’d have to spend hours with customer service chatbots; whereas now, if we have a problem with our heroin, we complain to a real live person who is usually just a whacked-out dope dealer that’s no match for a jonesing family of four.

Oh man, on heroin we became sentient with the knowledge that only time is essential. You know? And that God is a poppy seed. I mean, we used to waste our discretionary income on material things like Fortnite skins, apps, and Instagrammable holidays; whereas now that we are penniless drug addicts seeking top dollar for our organs, discretionary income is just a laughable abstraction.

Yes, you give up screens and you’ll notice things. For example, I noticed that my 15-year-old son was 5 years older than I remembered him. And that my 17-year-old daughter wore way more clothing than I’d assumed from her Instagram selfies. I was like, “Hello, you two. How are you guys?” My flesh and blood! We hugged and cried. It was a beautiful thing. And then we robbed a heroin dealer and ripped off a kilo of uncut china white.

And that blew my mind!

Look, I’ll admit, some things didn’t change; our days didn’t stop smearing into each other like the infinitesimal slices of an infinity beyond reckoning, but at least we faced that void together and we had each other’s hand to hold.

On the last day of our holiday, we woke up face down on the beach as the sun scrolled up. The mountainous island cove and the sky reminded me of the background of Candy Crush Saga. I’d once jeopardized my top score attempt by taking one hand off my phone to cut my child’s umbilical cord. I remembered this and a tear escaped my eye as I dragged my withdrawing family into a pile and said:

“Let’s enjoy every moment of our short lives guys, because it goes by in the blink of an eye. I LOVE YOU, SO MUCH.” I shouted. “Also, just letting you know that there will be a bus taking us to rehab in about 5 minutes.”