My Expanding Vocabulary

Today's word is "Mouse Potato"


I sit at my computer every morning, eating breakfast, and catching up with what’s happening in the world. Starting at a leisurely pace, I check out Google News and then cruise over to the Drudge Report. Then I check out my daughter’s blog—the one I’m never suppose to look at—to see what my little darlings have been up to with her friends. Yes, I spy on my kids. It’s my job because I’m their mother. Then after walking the dogs quickly around the block, I return to my computer and read my e-mail. I look at the clock and notice it’s getting late, but before signing off, I’m compelled to visit Ebay, Yahoo, and about a bizillion other websites too numerous to mention. I finish off my routine with 600 mg of Motrin because my carpel tunnel is flaring up, and before I know it, my day is shot. Time just seems to fly by. Could I possibly be a mouse potato?

According to the 2006 Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a mouse potato is someone who spends as much time on the computer as his/her 1990s counterpart did on the couch. As a side note, Whatis?.com adds that, just like couch potatoes, mouse potatoes eat tons of junk food. They said that a recent survey by the American Snack Food Association found that 85 percent of Web surfers snack while at the computer. There goes my voluptuous figure.

I think nurses, by our nature, excel at whatever we do, including surfing the web. Nurses obsessively perform tasks in an organized, efficient manner, and we never quit until the job is done. That is why we are able to do the work of ten people while performing our nursing duties. Surfing the web is a task, and like our duties at work, we will not stop until we visit every website we’ve bookmarked, even if it takes all day. Are you an over achieving mouse potato? Find out by answering the following questions:

Answer true or false

1) I’d rather hold a computer mouse than my spouse’s/significant other’s hand.
2) I can name ten websites faster than I can remember my cell phone number or the names and ages of my children.
3) I go through clinical withdrawal (sweaty palms, nausea, vomiting, the urge to kill) when I’m away from my computer for more than eight hours.
4) My pulse starts racing whenever I see a Mac commercial on TV.
5) My Christmas wish list looks like an invoice sheet from Best Buy’s computer department

If you answered true to any of these questions, you might be a mouse potato. If you are at risk for developing these symptoms, consult a computer specialist at Geeks are Us, or at www.apple.com.