Soon after I bought my first fidget spinner, I stopped making eye contact with loved ones during conversations. After my second, I went weeks without showering. Thirty-nine spinners and a divorce later, I can comfortably say that this is mankind’s greatest distraction since loose change in pockets.
A fidget spinner is exactly the kind of handheld escapism we need right now. The president just tweeted a swastika? Spin. Your beard smells like a ferret? Spin. You lose your job because you took a leave of absence to really spin? Spin like your life depends on it, and, considering the absence of scientific studies on fidget spinners, it very well might! Just ask my infant son who tried to swallow one but couldn’t thanks to its magnificently awkward shape. Fidget spinner: 1, untimely demise of my small-mouthed offspring: 0.
I even stopped taking my Vyvanse after seeing HELPS WITH ADHD stamped in day-glo on the spinner’s packaging. In my opinion, poorly translated Korean marketing copy is the only endorsement more trustworthy than Neil Degrasse Tyson on Last Week Tonight. Do I honestly need to take clinically tested, FDA-approved medication when there’s a toy that has yet to be disproven as a miraculous cure-all to the disease and discontent that plagues humanity? Plus, how am I supposed to open a childproof prescription bottle when both of my hands are busy spinning?
When I’m in the “spin zone” (copyright pending), I feel full without eating and almost forget my wife abandoned me months ago. Staring at the fluid rotation of spinner’s blades gives me peace, especially when they appear to reverse direction as if by the hand God. I know it’s an optical illusion, but it feels so real it makes me wonder if I conjured my entire marriage in a state of spinning-induced focus. I mean, only a figment of my own flawed imagination would file for separation at the mere suggestion of adding spinners to our lovemaking, right?
… Did I mention you can do tricks? Because you can do hella tricks with fidget spinners. If YouTube tutorials help you learn, feel free, but know the best teachers are usually truant middle school students at the mall. With thousands of hours of practice, you’ll be able to get 21 spinners going simultaneously, one on each of your fingers and toes, and one more on a body part of your choosing. Don’t choose your genitalia; the public, like my ex-wife, is not yet ready for tantric spinning.
Once you get good at it and begin living in a local park, a circle of neighborhood kids will form around you during a mid-afternoon spin session. Their initial disgust at your body odor will be quickly replaced by awe at your dope skills. Be proud; you’re teaching the next generation that the only obligation we have is to ourselves, and that being distracted from our broken society is far more important than doing anything to fix it.
When one of those youths, probably with a stupid name like Chandler, inevitably accuses you of childhood appropriation, resist the urge to launch a motorized spinner into his smug little face. If you’re like me, you’ll still end up committing what the prosecutor will call “assault with a hilariously non-deadly weapon,” but please don’t do to the sentencing judge what you did to Chandler, or those 90 days in county prison will turn into the rest of your twenties in a supermax.
Should you find yourself incarcerated despite your best efforts, remember that by the time you’re released, your spinning muscles will be so overdeveloped you can comfortably apply for your dream job: manual ceiling fan operator.