This morning, as I made ready to drive into work, I tried opening my Hoopla app. Error messages ensued. I tried again. More errors. I tried a third time. Errors all the way down.

I grew frustrated. I considered deleting and redownloading the app, but the clock was ticking on my commute (I was still in the driveway, mucking about with the broken Hoopla app). I gave up and drove in while listening to NPR. The Marketplace Morning Report is not my jam, but I made do. S&P 500, NASDAQ blah-dee-blah, trade wars with India now. I let the financial news wash over me, but I was not happy.

I’ve been listening to a really good audiobook lately, and my kids have finally started to groove to A Horse and His Boy.

Alas.

So I tried again on the drive home from work. No more error messages, but clicking the login button does nothing. Bupkis. I click again. Nada. This time, I DO delete the app and redownload it, and still, there is no signing in. Everything seems ready and right for signing in, but the actual signing in, the clicking of the signing in button results in no response. Username and password looking lovely in their little login fields, but clicking of “LOGIN” not so lovely.

I check to see if others are having this problem. They are. Posting on X, Hoopla even apologized for technical difficulties around seven hours ago. It is a known issue.

And yet, I tried the login again. Tried typing in the password instead of letting my autofiller do it. Tried Googling again for answers.

This was futile, and I knew it would be, and yet I did it anyway.

Why did I do it? Why was I still trying to open Hoopla when I knew it was down, by the company’s own confession? Why was I sitting in my car in the parking lot at work for a good solid five or so minutes when I knew none of my efforts would bear fruit? Why did I try again when I got home, sitting for another five minutes in the garage, trying to login and relogin in, and delete the app and redownload the app, the same non-response as before, the same inoperability?

By my own unscientific count, I’d spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get Hoopla to work today, and no, fifteen minutes isn’t a super-long time, but it’s still time–time I could have spent listening to an Audible book or podcast, time I could have spent listening to music, time I could have spent in silence or thought or deep contemplation or simply driving on the road and getting to work/home a little faster. I wasted that time on trying to troubleshoot the stupid app instead of moving on with my life and doing something else.

And even more, I wasted energy and thought and emotion on this trivial thing. So what if Hoopla’s not working today? It’s not like I don’t have a lot of other ways to occupy my mind on the commute. It’s not like I don’t have other ways of listening to audiobooks. I might not love Marketplace Morning Report, but now I know just a little bit more about farmers learning how to adapt to climate change by using more eco-friendly agricultural practices. That ain’t nothing. I have a wealth, a king’s ransom worth of books and music and media of all sorts in my house and in my classroom, and even my radio is a wealth of music and ideas and information, and yet here I was spending time and energy and emotion on worrying about Hoopla.

Would I be sad if Hoopla disappeared? 100%. I love how many audio and ebooks I’ve discovered through the app.

But it’s not like I don’t have access to audiobooks and ebooks and regular book-books in other ways. I’m whining to myself about Hoopla when twenty years ago I would have had none of this plethora of literary media to choose from.

And this is why digital technology of every stripe–electronic technology really–is so frustrating. We come to rely upon it, and when it doesn’t work, when it goes down, when the power is cut off or the system crashes, we’re lost.

I mean, we’re not literally lost, but we feel lost. Bereft. We mash buttons and refresh pages and unplug and replug and do all the other things that are supposed to solve the problem, and as we do, our frustration grows at being cut off from the formerly-instantaneous pleasure machine.

Think about what happens when the internet goes out. When the power dies in a wind storm. When the app crashes.

We growl and grumble and spend fifteen precious minutes of our day trying to get back on, hook back up, return to the smooth seamlessness of our former digital lives.

Even now, I’m writing a ranty blog post about it. The Hoopla app’s crash has infected even this moment of my life.

It’s all so silly. I know I’m wasting time worrying about it. And yet my response to these things is always, “There must be a way to fix it!” As if I have any power in this situation.

I am powerless. And it is this powerlessness that is worst of all. It’s why I spent all that time in my respective driveways. I was trying to regain power. To fix the thing.

But I can’t fix the thing. Apps and electrical power grids are not things I can fix. Internet outages and system malfunctions are not things I am equipped to handle. I need experts. I need people in far-off places, with more expertise, with a desire to help, to help me.

The crashing of the Hoopla app is a lesson in my own dependency.

Maybe that’s why I raged against it all day. To be confronted with my helplessness. To face a thing I couldn’t fix.

Because I’m a person who wants to fix things, and when I can’t fix something, I rebel. The world is wrong. There must be a way. I’ll figure it out. Just give me a minute. I’ll solve this.

But I can’t solve the Hoopla app’s malfunction. I can’t solve so many problems of my modern, digital life. All these things are beyond my control. I must rely upon the kindness of strangers.

I’m sure they’ll fix it. Eventually.

But until then, I’ll have to accept my own vulnerability and imperfection. And recognize there are some things in this world I cannot fix.