My Brain Thinks I'm a Medieval Peasant With a Smartphone

I woke up to check my emails and somehow ended up convinced I should store potatoes under the bed.

There’s this thing my brain does where it pretends we’re living in 1324 but with internet. Like, I’ll be scrolling through Instagram, very much participating in modern civilization, and then suddenly my brain goes full agrarian panic mode and decides we need to start hoarding root vegetables.

This started when I woke up at 3am with the overwhelming urge to check my phone. Not because I was expecting anything important. Just because my stupid anxiety brain thought there might be an urgent message from the king about invading Normans or whatever.

There wasn’t.

There was, however, a targeted ad for a 50-pound bag of potatoes.

And my brain, instead of thinking “that’s a lot of potatoes” like a normal person, immediately went into full peasant mode and thought “winter is coming and we must prepare for the famine.”

I don’t even like potatoes that much.

But there I was, lying in bed, considering where I would store 50 pounds of potatoes in my studio apartment. Under the bed felt right. Temperature-stable. Dark. Away from pillaging invaders who definitely exist in my modern American city.

The rational part of my brain tried to intervene. It was like “hey, we have a grocery store literally five blocks away that’s open until nine.” But peasant brain was having none of it. Peasant brain was doing mental calculations about how long we could survive on potatoes alone if society collapsed tomorrow.

It’s a depressingly long time.

I didn’t buy the potatoes. But I thought about them for three solid days. Which is roughly 72 hours more than any human should think about potatoes they don’t even own.

This is how my brain operates. Constant low-level medieval anxiety about resource scarcity, except instead of worrying about actual survival, I’m having a full-blown panic spiral about running out of paper towels and other household essentials.

Like, I’ll be at the store, very casually shopping for normal things, and then I’ll see paper towels and my brain goes “WINTER IS COMING” and I have to physically stop myself from buying ten rolls like I’m preparing for a siege.

I don’t know when this started. I think it was sometime around when I realized I was an adult who had to buy my own toilet paper and that no one was going to rescue me if I ran out. That’s when peasant brain activated and decided we needed to live like we were constantly three bad harvests away from ruin.

The worst part is that this anxiety doesn’t even make sense in the context of my actual life. I live in a city. With infrastructure. And delivery services. If I run out of something, I can have it brought to my door within two hours.

But no. Peasant brain is convinced that at any moment, all systems will collapse, and I’ll be left alone with nothing but whatever I’ve managed to stockpile under my bed.

Which is currently one half-empty box of granola bars, a broken phone charger, and an alarming amount of dust.

Not exactly a sustainable food supply.

The thing about peasant brain is that it doesn’t just stop at hoarding. It extends to every aspect of modern life in the stupidest ways possible.

Like, I’ll be trying to decide if I should order takeout, and peasant brain will chime in with “but what if this is the last money you ever have and you waste it on shrimp fried rice instead of investing it in livestock?”

I don’t have livestock.

I have a succulent that’s slowly dying because I keep forgetting to water it.

But sure, brain. Let’s worry about livestock.

Or I’ll be scrolling through social media and see someone posting about their vacation, and instead of thinking “that looks nice,” peasant brain goes “they’re going to get dysentery and die and you’ll be here, alive, with your potatoes.”

I need to schedule a therapy appointment.

Or possibly just a better relationship with carbohydrates.

The real kick in the face is that peasant brain coexists with modern anxieties. So I’ll be having a full-blown panic about whether I responded to an email fast enough, and also worrying about whether I have enough pasta to survive the rest of this year.

It’s exhausting.

Like, pick a century, brain. Either we’re worried about our Substack engagement or we’re worried about the harvest. We can’t be worried about both.

Except we are.

Because my brain has decided that the ideal survival strategy is to live like I’m preparing for the apocalypse while also maintaining a strong personal brand online.

Which is how I ended up with an Amazon shopping cart full of emergency rations and a drafts folder full of notes about how relatable it is to have crippling anxiety about running out of pasta.

I deleted the cart.

Kept the notes.

Because that’s where we’re at now. I may think I’m a medieval peasant, but at least I’m a medieval peasant with decent internet and a moderately successful Substack presence.

The potatoes can wait.

Probably.

Unless they go on sale again.

Then all bets are off.