Apple Watch Nights: The Ballad of Christina
Closing the rings on your Apple Watch ain't easy, but it is necessary
The other night, I fell asleep on the couch while watching Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Will Ferrell didn’t notice that I had fallen asleep, and Christina didn’t notice either. Until I began to snore.
“Honey, let’s go to bed,” Christina said.
“What time is it?”
“Almost midnight.”
Christina turned off the television, locked the front door, and headed off to the bedroom. After I took Mortimer out back to pee, we went back to the bedroom.
I had to pee too, but the bathroom was occupied.
No big deal.
Except, strange things were afoot in our bathroom.
Christina was seated on the toilet. That part was normal. The abnormal part was that my wife was throwing punches—stinging jabs, crushing crosses, and devastating uppercuts. She looked like Mike Tyson shadow boxing on the crapper.
My first thought was that Christina was under attack, possibly from poltergeists, which can be tricky, even for a power-puncher like Christina. My second thought was that as Christina’s husband, partner, and life buddy, I was duty-bound to jump into the poltergeist melee, which can be tricky for a coward like me.
“I’ve got to close my rings,” Christina explained. “I have four minutes left, and I need to burn fifty calories.”
Oh! That explained the punching. And thankfully, this wasn’t a poltergeists situation. But it was an Apple Watch situation, and those can be tricky too. See, the selling point of the Apple Watch, at least for us, is that it gamifies exercise and movement. Maybe that makes us rats in Apple’s weird digital maze, but since we started wearing our Apple Watches, we’ve been moving and exercising more. The results have been good. We feel better, we have more energy, we’ve lost weight, we’ve lost inches (centimeters when we travel abroad), and according to Kaiser Permanente, our blood work is “the tits.” Basically, these damn Apple Watches work! But you’ve got to close those rings.
“You need to move your legs,” I said.
Christina fired off a series of kicks. Now, she looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme on the crapper.
“No, get up and move,” I said.
Chrisinta finished her business, got up, washed her hands, and began to pace around our bedroom.
“Gotta move, gotta move,” she said.
But then Christina did the one thing you never want to do when you’re on a ring-closing run. She stopped to check her progress.
“Damn it. I still need to burn forty calories.”
I glanced at my watch. Christina had about three minutes to close her movement ring.
“Keep moving,” I shouted. “Never stop!”
Christina began to pace again, but she needed to pick up the pace if she was going to close those rings.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “Alexa, play Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.”
A moment later, the greatest sports training montage song of all time began to play.
“Go! Go! Go! You got this! Push it! Move it! Go! Go! Go! Eye of the tiger, baby!”
For the next few minutes, I shouted encouragement. Mortimer barked encouragement. Christina ran, punched, and kicked her way around our bedroom. She looked like Jason Bourne in pajamas.
Christina gave it her all. She embraced the eye of the tiger. She lost herself in the thrill of the fight. She rose up to the challenge of her rival—that damn Apple Watch and its stubborn rings. But much like Rocky Balboa at the end of the first movie, Christina’s all won her the respect of the crowd, but not the fight.
“Damn it,” she said as she tumbled into bed. “I missed it by three calories.”
I might’ve pointed out that for all it’s whiz-bang technology the Apple Watch is an imprecise tool, and that Christina probably did hit her movement goal, even if she didn’t close her rings. But such a comment would’ve felt hollow— like telling Ricky Bobby that even though he didn’t finish first, he wasn’t last. So instead, I leaned over and kissed Christina.
“You’ll close ‘em tomorrow, champ. Great effort.”
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Shout out time
An energetic, calorie-burning shout out to
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Stick around and chat!
You know the drill. I’ve got questions, you’ve got answers.
Do you use a wearable device that measures your movements, or are you sane? Dish!
To close my rings, I enjoy walking uphill and doing yoga; I tolerate the elliptical machine. How about you?
What’s your favorite sports training montage song? Help everyone level-up their exercise playlist!
Is anyone else wondering why Hollywood hasn’t made a limited series legal drama that explores the possibility that Rocky actually beat Apollo Creed in the first movie, and that maybe the fix was in because boxing is totally corrupt? Go deep on this one!
I probably owe the cast and crew of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby an apology for falling asleep. How can I make it up to them?
Want more Michael Estrin stories? I’ve got two books!
Ride/Share: Micro Stories of Soul, Wit and Wisdom from the Backseat is a collection of my Lyft driver stories🚗🗣
Not Safe for Work is a slacker noir novel based on my experiences covering the adult entertainment industry💋🍑🍆🕵️♂️
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One last thing!
I was recently on a podcast called Kurt Vonnegut Radio with Gabe Hudson. You should listen because this conversation was a lot of fun.
That's definitely a different way to have a 'movement' in the bathroom. If only you had started snoring sooner, Christina might have gotten those few extra minutes she needed to grab the 3 calories and close the rings.. Rocky would have been proud.
The secret to the Apple Watch is re-setting the calories goal to a lower number!