You've got a right/ but I've got a right tonight
Excessive interneting has lead to an apparent zero tolerance policy on behalf of the ye old workplace. The leering “Know Your Employers’ Internet Policy” poster hanging by my desk for months went unnoticed, and so did the literature placed strategically around the break room. Now they have blocked my computer in what can only be viewed as some harsh Draconian consideration, clicking on a favorite website and receiving the message, in harshly defined block print. Meanwhile I have taken to pencil and paper, feverishly scrawling on a notepad; let them lock away my supplies and then what?? (You cannot take away my pencil and paper! I want to shout obnoxiously in earshot of the internet patrol team—a division that I have yet to pinpoint, but when I do will be met with swift action and icy looks). It’s weird, though, writing by hand, which is limited primarily to correspondence with a pen pal who never writes back. It’s like some kind of technological artifact from the dark ages. Your hand isn’t accustomed to this variety of strenuous activity, developing a dull ache between your thumb and forefinger. It’s kind of nice, though, too, at the same time, like unearthing your bicycle from a garbage strewn crawl space and realizing you can still pedal like a motherfucker. Sitting before a computer for hours on end has a dull, pacifying effect which has you mouth-breathing and on the verge of entirely differnet platitudes. Just today KJ was choking on a piece of food, and I watched on as though I were dreaming an unreal dreamw while various coworkers tried their hand at some variety of the Heimlich. At least four different people came up from behind her as pandemonium broke out in the office, people scattering everywhere. And all I could do was sit there, watching on as the translucent line which separates living and dying became boldened, and then perfectly defined, like the scrawling of somebody with a CAD variety number 2 pencil.