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“There’s something about Sunday night,” Angela from the mid-90s television show My So-Called Life begins, “that really makes you want to kill yourself.” Morbid, yes. Accurate, even more so. She even goes on to describe the “creepy” 60 Minutes clock that sounds like her life “ticking away.” Again, morbid but also beyond accurate because if you can withstand the noise of that damn clock without having feverish visions of the weekend that has passed, you have the mental fortitude of someone stronger than I.
There are things you can do to avoid the inevitable anxiety that will eventually keep you up (or wake you up) the night before Monday returns again. How you avoid that feeling of dread is up to you – a movie, a family dinner, a workout (well, that is, if you’re one of those assholes who works out on Sundays). But whatever you do, even the smallest of missteps can completely derail your fragile night into one filled with demons screaming, “Unread emails! You’re too old to drink that much! Everyone hates you!” It cold be a tipped-over glass of water or a commercial for Grey’s Anatomy that reminds you that you haven’t been to the doctor in over a year.
What you can do, though? Control your emotions by limiting your intake – romantic comedies in place of horrors, John Mayer instead of that Weeknd song you only kind of remember hearing on Friday night, and complete and utter avoidance of the following apps that could send you from “ready for the work week” to “where is my life going?”
Phone
Not that anyone uses their actual phone anymore unless someone dies or your creepy Uber driver calls you, but even one glance at your ‘Favorites’ list could trigger thoughts about how you need to call your mom more or follow up with that client the next day.
Or, even worse, your phone seeks you out with the firepower of a heat-seeking missile in the form of a phone call from a random number. Sure, it’s just a telemarketer, but when you don’t answer, you begin asking yourself, “What if it’s a bill collector for something I never even knew was outstanding? What if it’s an Emergency Room? What if it’s the bar where I left my credit card?” Not even the final scene of You’ve Got Mail can make your heart skip a beat like a missed call from an unknown number.
Snapchat
Hell hath no fury like re-living your fuzzy Saturday night through your shaky and blurry Snapchat story. Amidst sending a bloated selfie of yourself to your top friends, there’s a sudden realization that you should check your story just in case you went a little too far the night before. Sure, you only post stories between the hours of 10 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. on Sundays because there’s something about an influx of beer, wine, and liquor that tells you it’s a good idea. But it’s not, and you’re old enough now that you should probably just stick to the elderly’s version of Snapchat: Instagram stories.
Banking
Your bank account could look like your social security number and even then it’s completely unacceptable to put your thumb down on your phone and lazily login to make sure no one has stolen your identity and/or no bars have overcharged you because you were the sloppy chick who clearly wouldn’t remember her last couple rounds of “vodkaaaaa-thodasssss.” One man’s magnum of Veuve in a club could be another girl’s regretful slice of drunken pizza that will inevitably burn her mouth, but one fact remains – the more you drink, the more spur-of-the-moment “I can totally afford this!” purchases you’ll inevitably make. Seeing your bank account slip below that magic number in your head could be the bullet in the head of your irresponsible weekend.
iMessage
The comfort of a group text on a Sunday night can only go so far before it fizzles out because half the squad is dying of alcohol poisoning and the other half is lethargically watching something with a stolen HBO Go password. The danger doesn’t inherently lie in the Sunday night texts themselves – they exist in what came before. The possible overdraft notifications from a number that probably looks like ’65-312,’ the Uber driver that you cancelled on when he told you he’d be five minutes late which cost you five extra bucks, or (the worst) when you texted “Heyyyyy” to your ex when you ran out of Bumble matches. The only saving grace, at this point, is blurring your eyes enough to see what you’re doing (but not enough to where you can actually read names) and just start rapidly deleting anything texted before 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon. If you don’t remember sending it (and deleted it before you could re-see it), it never. fucking. happened.
You might hate your boss and deactivate your work email between the hours of 5 o’clock on Friday and 9 o’clock on Monday morning because ignorance is bliss. But even if you don’t, something as simple as double-tapping your home button to clear your apps will end up manually refreshing your email and triggering that “ding” sound signalling a slew of new messages in your inbox. While 90 percent of them are from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, the other 10 percent isn’t worth a second look until you’re avoiding work on Monday when you’re alt-tabbing between a spreadsheet and ESPN.com to see if your fantasy team still sucks. “Spend Your Tracking” emails from American Express, meeting reminders from your office, that high-horse client who works weekends, whatever. Your email is just the more responsible version of your text messages, and responsibility is the opposite of what your brain needs when you’re looking into the eyes of a two-day hangover.
Venmo
There’s a significant difference between your Venmo account and your bank account: sometimes there’s surprise money in your Venmo account. It’s like finding a twenty-dollar bill in your snowpants on the first day of ski season – it’s a pleasant surprise that leads to you buying a round of pitchers. But when you head to the Notifications tab and see a number outlined in red, waves of “Who haven’t I paid yet?” rumble through your throbbing head. That stickler friend (read: that nice friend who covered everyone’s tab so you wouldn’t have to split it between 13 cards) actually remembered to send out multiple receipts for that brunch, and all of the sudden, your budget for lunches this week went from $50 at the grocery store down to $35.
Your best bet? Queue up some My So-Called Life and put your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. Unless Publishers Clearing House knocks down your door with a giant million dollar check, any interaction with the outside world just isn’t worth it. .
Image via YouTube
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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I went to bed at 11:20 last night and didn’t fall asleep until after 1:30. Then I woke up before 3:30 drenched in sweat. Fuck.
Sounds like a good start to a Monday.
I avoid people like the plague on Sundays. Nothing worse than waking up to a, “Do you remember what you did last night?” text.
Damn I hate Monday’s.
Hot take of the century
…Definitely made the banking mistake yesterday. It was awful.
thank you a thousand times over for reminding me of My So-Called Life
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The calendar app. Will, you’re a pansy.
Luckily never had these Sunday scaries. Fingers crossed