Tinfoil Viking Science: Atmospheric Devolution

Situation Normal. Atmosphere Breathable. Brainstem Injected. Dialogue Engaged.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Atmospheric Devolution

I'm cranky today. My eyes are pickled and my throat is coated in quivering little giblets of phlegm. I ate all my food groups yesterday, stayed sober, and got my requisite 7 hours of shuteye. I must need caffeine. I'm not the only one.

My coworkers are great. They enjoy bathroom jokes, sports, and making fun of customers. Just like me. But they too are are badly off kilter today. They're calling one another cuntface and spitting at each other. This whole office is suffering from a collective hangover, although none of us drank last night. As far as I know.

The fluorescent lights are all turned off, except for the emergency light above my desk. By contrast it's bleaching my hair and ears. The blinds are also shut. The darkness is perfect for soothing lurking temper tantrums and subduing simmering shit fits.

I wonder if there's a mysterious airborne illness affecting us. Perhaps the carbon monoxide detector, if we ever had one, has malfunctioned and the poisonous gas is seeping into our lungs. Eventually it will cause drooling and giggling, no doubt from a massively accelerated evaporation of brain cells, finally to result in our collective convulsive collapse into death on a dirty floor.

Maybe I can narrowly escape death and survive with only moderate damage. Soon after they'll have to buy me a cage, line it with newspaper, and feed me low grade nearly rotten raw beef in a chipped plastic bowl with "Stevie" stencilled in black spraypaint on it's side. My fevered damaged mind may see maggots and scratch my own skin from my face in dangly little wet strips, but that's best left for discussion on another day.

10:07 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm

5 Comments:

February 24, 2005 1:52 PM, if_i_had_a_hammer said...: illnesses spread around my office like wildfire. i'm sure a conspiracy theorist could propose that offices are government testing grounds for new killer flus, but i'm not one of those people.

last life in the universe is highly recommended, by the way.
February 24, 2005 3:52 PM, Bookfraud said...: it's clear your distress is a result of an airborne toxic event. take some Dylar and groove to the Clash.
February 24, 2005 4:10 PM, Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm said...: Awesome suggestion, Bookfraud. I've almost grabbed Underworld from the shelf so many times.

I'll check out White Noise. I find it interesting that the original title was supposed to be Panasonic until the parent company of theirs, Matsushita, nixed the idea with threatening letters.

Matsushita (pronounced "Muh-shooz-da") is a company that I do a lot of business with these days. They're the reason the company I work for exists. They fired our founder and CEO 13 years ago and flew him to Japan. They were closing the service division for his particular product. They asked him to found this company so they could farm out that same service work to him. Here we are.

Besides Panasonic, they also own Quasar (dodgy low-end VCRs and home electronics) and Technics. (high-end direct-drive turntables, of which I own a pair from my raver days)
February 25, 2005 9:53 AM, sic said...: who's osha?
February 25, 2005 10:48 AM, Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm said...: John, I have no idea about the avatar. I think that only blogger accounts get avatars here, unlike haloscan commenting. I think.

Yes, I was a raver. Sort of. In reality I was just a drug fiend. I ate lots of mescaline and LSD and stayed up for days on end and skipped school. Stuff like that. I enjoyed myself. I was into certain types of dance music and even DJed at a rave once. I own lots and lots of records. I love vinyl. Lots of Moby from before his current blues-hop phase.

Sarcastrix - OSHA is an acronym for Occupational Safety & Health Administration, a government entity entrusted with administering legally enforced safe workplaces and controlled hazards. Or somesuch.