ANDRE BEGIN

Not too long ago, I was scrolling through Amazon Prime when I noticed episodes of The Bionic Woman available to stream.

It would be no understatement to say that it was one of my favorite shows during my preteen years. I loved Lindsay Wagner. I loved her in the role. And in the mid-1970s, to see a strong, empowered woman on TV, saving the world, it left a strong and positive impression on me. Representation is important!

I knew that back in the day, I had seen all of the episodes of The Bionic Woman as well as those of her male counterpart, The Six Million Dollar Man. What would it be like to watch an episode almost 50 years later?

I decided to venture down the rabbit hole and relive some of those wonderful memories.

Not long into the first episode, the iconic bionic sound effect played as Lindsay’s character, Jamie Sommers, uses her bionic powers. It made me smile as I remembered my friends and I recreating that sound effect in the schoolyard when we pretended to be super strong or super fast.

A few episodes down the rabbit hole later, I could feel that the sound effect had re-entered my subconscious and had become my new earworm.

A few days later, I woke up one morning, looked out the window and let out a deep sigh at the sight of the apples that had fallen from our tree after a windy night.

This year was really strange, as the apples fell at a crazy pace, well before they were ready to be picked. Several days started with the annoying task of picking up all of the fallen apples that were too hard, too small and too starchy for any practical use. The last thing I wanted was for our lawn care guy to show up and turn them into apple sauce and create a bigger mess to clean up.

As I looked at that morning’s mess, a familiar little sound effect started playing in my head. I burst out laughing. I saw it as a sign suggesting I shouldn’t overthink it and just get on with it.

With the bionic sound effect playing in my head over and over, I found myself collecting the apples with a certain speed and intensity while remaining vigilant not to twist or contort my body in such a way as to throw my back out. Fortunately, I was able to get through the job pretty quickly, without letting my headspace get too bogged down by the drudgery of the task.

Let’s face it, spurring myself into action to the bionic sound effect at almost age 60 may seem a little bit silly, but then again, so is having to pick up hundreds of little unripe apples every few days.

Just the same, the bionic sound effect also played in my head during a recent scrub of the tub and laundry folding session to very satisfying results.

Going forward, I will keep this trick in my back pocket for tasks that I may not necessarily be thrilled about, but need to get done anyway. However, there is a certain caution that goes with that in that I would not invoke the bionic sound effect when handling delicate items like glassware, dishes, or anything electronic. For breakable stuff, slow is the way to go.

The unfortunate reality of adulting is that there are things we have to do, whether we like it or not, but that’s just the package deal of life. If the bionic sound effect is an effective trigger to spur me into action while minimizing any inner complaining, self-defeating dialogue or procrastination, then who am I to question this humourous throwback to my pre-teen years?

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André