You may have hypothesized, drawing upon the deep waters of our last conversation and the scientific method, my extension cord solution ultimately involved ingesting the cord itself. After all, such prolonged silence could only result from supplementing 6-11 daily servings of bread and grain with precious, precious lead.
I’m just about finished moving and, more importantly, reconnecting myself to the hivemind by way of Comcast. It’s been a solid week where I had my cable modem in one apartment, my computer in the other, and nary the inclination to bring the two together. How did the Internet, once a delightful after-work luxury, become a necessity? We once managed conversations without a home connection, and it was a quaint time when dialogue was born from naught but nightly preparation and a USB key. I think there were horses and carriages back then–porches, even, upon which the milkman could deliver milk.
But we’re back now, normalcy fully within our grasp, and I expect to make up for lost time. Silence will do that, you know, shore up talk and make you real amenable to sharing, whether people want to listen or not. At the same time, though, I secretly enjoyed the unwired existence. It’s a dangerous precedent.
Riddle me this: is there anybody on earth’s sundry greens who has the power–the gumption, my good listener–to manufacture an extension cord that refrains from killing customers? My new digs, comfortably situated in plush Wilmette, hearken back to an earlier time, an era when Ben Franklin had yet to do his thing. None of the outlets can accommodate three-pronged plugs, an alien technology that I will have to reproduce.
Apparently I’m not meant to accomplish this feat, however, given the dire warnings splayed on every package at Target and Walmart. Here it is, word for word.
WARNING: This product contains chemicals, including lead, known to the State of California to cause [cancer, and] birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.
Every goddamn cord, 3-ft. to 100-ft., crafted to blight our land with sickness and death. Why cancer only warrants a parenthetical, I can’t precisely say, although it’s a relief this warning only applies to the State of California. The two-hour time difference makes everything better, I guess.
Despite my best efforts, Monday’s discussion did not, in fact, warrant a hallowed spot in Reader’s Digest, although Google did affirm the exclusivity of the quote. More importantly, however, I was afforded an evening of not posting. I know, I know. Devious.
What is the perfect job? Certainly there are shitty jobs and better jobs, but in any sector you’ll always gripe and hear the griping. Everybody does it. It’s an institution, as necessary as it is there, and implicit in each complaint is the possible existence of occupational paradise. How you would find this paradise, I’m not exactly sure. I imagine somewhere, somehow, there’s a job wherein you sail along golden shores, rescuing whales while a chorus of orphans swells in the background, praising your benevolence because you saved the orphanage by doing an awesome cost-benefit analysis.
A dolphin, whom you also saved, leaps out of the sparkling waters, handing you a fat paycheck with one fin and wiping your ass with the other. It waves goodbye–with its good fin–before plunging back to the depths.
A few weeks ago, as I was driving home, it occurred to me I’m content with my industry. Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of brutal days. It still seems like a sensory overload to coast through e-mail after e-mail in Outlook. There aren’t as many layers of bureaucracy to buffer and comfort. The online sphere runs in real-time, which means falling asleep at the wheel will beget bitchslappings of real-time proportions. But there is also a belief in the medium itself, and the same speed that stresses also thrills at times.