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Commentary
Overdose of reality can be dangerous
By John Behling
Published:
Thursday, July 31, 2003
John Behling
I am now deleting 75 percent of the staff essay I typed last night. Vanishing into the discarded oxide rings of my computer's hard drive is a semi-fictionalized account of my friend Tim's recent loss of his sanity to Windows XP and its infinite bugginess. However, I have decided to leave the other 25 percent, a vignette that I intended to be a prologue to Tim's saga.
Today the pay-at-the-pump computer refused to let me decline a receipt. It prompted ever so politely "PRINT RECEIPT?" Too tired of little paper slips that I put in my wallet and never look at, and a little depressed about the price of gas, I decline. I press no. Nothing happens. I press no again. Still nothing. I press harder. Still nothing. "Stupid digital keypads," I curse. I wish they had bigger buttons, ones that actually moved, buttons from Star Trek-era future fantasy worlds. Luxurious, glowing, plastic buttons that slide, creak, smack and spring when you press them. When you press buttons like that, the world knows that they have been pressed.
Despite my best pressing efforts, this digital monster is still waiting for my response. And I'm having a hard time believing that I'm even pressing it anymore. There's no click, no blip, no woosh, no "wiz-bang," no immediate reaction to prove that my action has made any difference in the world. Stunned, I press the "yes" button. Immediately it prints my receipt. I take it and walk submissively back to my car. I am another conquered commuter in the real world. I am another anonymous journalist bent to the will of a malevolent machine, the subordinate of the sprawling fossil fuel infrastructure. "Damn you pay-at-the-pump computer... Damn you."
The gasoline horrors are just one of many, many demons of the "real world" that have me counting down the days to when I will return to college life. Soon I hope to forget how to set my alarm clock to 6:30 a.m. In fact, I hope to never see 6:30 a.m. for the duration of the school year. Soon I will forget sleep-walk-driving commutes, the endless cycle of coffee machine, water-cooler and bathroom, adjustable chairs that don't adjust and Apple computers from the early '90s.
For the last two months I have been an intern at the Post-Review, a weekly community newspaper in the small town of North Branch, Minn. I've been writing about tractors, golf leagues, church youth groups and T-ball. I've been taking pictures, making coffee, answering phones and operating the world's first Xerox machine. For the last two months I've been a living, breathing, functioning, working member of the human race. And how do I feel about this? I have no idea. I'm too tired to form an opinion. I've been lulled into the day-to-day, time-card to time-card, bagged lunch at noon, commute home at 5 p.m. eventuality of things. This could be the rest of my life. This could be the rest of any of our lives.
But then there's what I do when I'm not working. Eating, sleeping, arguing with my girlfriend at the video store. Drinking Grainbelt beer and eating nachos while chatting with my mom about movies from the '40s. Playing Tekken Four with my brother and listening to my dad preach the gospel of Bush. Then there's the movies...
When I'm driving home from Southdale - where the bulk of screenings are held - there's stretch of 35W that bends to the right and slopes upward. A voice deep inside says that if I accelerate into this curve with enough velocity it will slingshot me into the Minneapolis skyline.
To those who think that this is a morbid, suicidal thought I should clarify. It's a really, really beautiful skyline. If only my car could just forget about the freeway and fly like the Delorian from "Back to the Future." That's all I need, a little sliver of Hollywood fantasy in my "real world." Is that too much to ask?
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