Every day I wake up.

I brush my teeth. I check the FiveThirtyEight election tracker. I eat breakfast. I check the FiveThirtyEight Election tracker again. I leave my apartment. I check the FiveThirtyEight Election tracker again.

SEE ALSO: Finding humor in an absurd election

By the most conservative of estimates, I check the FiveThirtyEight Election tracker 600 times a day.

Image: FIVETHIRTYEIGHT AS OF 4:38 PM EST ON 10/6/16



It doesn't even update as frequently as I check it! At the time of writing, it's 78.8 percent Hillary Clinton to 21.2 percent Donald Trump. Where will it be in 2, 20 or 40 minutes? I'm not sure. But I need to know.

When I close my eyes, I see the colors of the states. Quiz me. Minnesota, currently? Light blue. Nevada? Even lighter blue. Alabama? Blood red.

Image: fivethirtyeight as of 4:38 PM EST on 10/6/16

When it started, I treated it like a new social media platform I had to look at when I started and ended my day. But soon, I was looking at it more than I ever looked at Instagram or Twitter combined. Now it's my entire world.

I was trying to sound impressive, earlier, when I was bragging about brushing my teeth and leaving my apartment. I don't do anything anymore. I just check the tracker, and write posts on Facebook and Twitter about where the tracker is at.

This, of course, comes at the dismay of my colleagues and supervisors, because I haven't shown up to work in several weeks. I don't exactly understand why they're upset, since I completely explained myself. However, I still receive emails like this almost daily.

But no one's taking this harder than my family, because I've locked myself away in a room with only internet access, Smartwater and Fritos until the election so I can just focus on tracking the election. And yet, I receive emails like this twice daily.

I will stay in one place, checking the tracker and making posts to the same group of people until the election. I'm registered out-of-state, so I won't even need to leave my home to vote because I've already completed my absentee ballot.

That is, unless we all agree to stop checking the tracker. I can either wait it out another month, or I can try to get my life back together starting now.

Either we all have to stop checking it or no one stops.

Either we all have to stop checking it or no one stops. I am not strong enough to stop on my own. Because even if I return to my typical life, and I leave my home and I go to work, I will, at some point in the day, encounter someone who brings up the tracker. And then I will spiral once again.

Because I know I'm not the only one! I might have taken it the furthest, but I'm not the only one who checks FiveThirtyEight more than three times a day.

So please, can we try to cool it? I need to go to work because I've run out of Smartwater and Fritos and my family refuses to buy me more, and I need to make some money first.

BONUS: Can you really trust political polls?