The son and his girlfriend are into the step craze.
You know what I mean.
These days, people don't simply put one foot in front of the other when they want to go somewhere. They count every step they're taking.
"We got the app," the son told me. "So we're doing the counting bigtime. We're really into it."
"Oh," I said. 'That's interesting."
That's not really what I was thinking.
The son, I might add, is far from the first person who has told me this recently. Three or four colleagues at work have also been doing the step count, as has a neighbour around the block. Some of them have the app. Some of them have purchased bracelets that do the job.
None of them, so far as I know, has been counting the old-fashioned way. You know, by counting.
"Couldn't you just, um, count your steps?" I asked the son.
"I suppose you could," he said. "But you might lose track. Besides, there's an app that does it for you."
Of course, there is. Geez, there's an app for everything these days, probably even one that will count the number of times you blink or the number of times you sneeze or the number of times you go upstairs in search of something, but can't remember what it was.
"So," I said to the son, "how many steps do you average?" "Oh," he said. "Maybe 5,000 a day. Often more."
I gave this some thought and decided I didn't know what to make of it, having never counted my steps.
"Is that good?" I asked. "I think so," he said. "And how does that compare with your steps before you got the app?" "Don't know," he said. "I wasn't counting then."
No idea, either, what even constitutes a step.
"Suppose," I said to the son, "that you walked around your house three times, but only taking baby steps. You wouldn't have travelled very far, but you'd really be racking up the numbers, wouldn't you?" "I guess," he said. "But who wants to do that?" Indeed. Who on earth would want to do that? "And suppose," I continued, "you decided to run around the block. You'd burn a lot more calories than if you walked, but you'd probably be taking the same number of steps, wouldn't you?" "I guess," he said.
"Actually, I don't know."
I don't know either. I do know, however, that some things don't really fit the high-tech world.
The son can take his step-count app. I'd rather take a walk.
