Your Significant Other Will Dump You If You Order The Veal And These Other Items

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, here with Part III, here with Part IV, and here with Part V. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: using the writing prompt book Write the Story, include the ten provided words (underlined in this text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in finding yourself on stage, in front of an audience of your parents and peers, wearing nothing but a speedo and a cape that inexplicably has the word “PHOTOGRAPHER” emblazoned across it.

A Lunch Date Gone Wrong

Is it hot in here, or is it just me? Things were going so well, the relationship seemed back on track. And then…the carnival came back to town.

She started showing up late for dates, or putting them off. Without explanation.

I admit it. I got jealous. I began to assume the worst: she was going to leave me for that cult. When we started dating again, I made a promise to myself. OK, two promises:

I would get all the facts instead of jumping to conclusions.

I would never again roller skate nude under the full moon.

Without using mosquito repellent. You can only draw blood from scratching bug bites too hard so many times before you swear that oath.

So here we are, our brunch date now a lunch date due to her inexplicable tardiness, having a ‘discussion’ over a mango salad about her career, her needs, her hopes and desires. And how they don’t include assuming the traditional housewife role, or monogamy, or, worst of all, punctuality.

My sweet tea couldn’t taste more bitter. I struggle to hold back, to refrain from pitting my rapid-fire questions against her inconsistent logic. She was never late before the carnival returned. She never came over to my place smelling like pipe tobacco and my ex-wife’s favorite perfume before the carnival came to town. We never talked about marriage in the days preceding the cultists’ return.

So why now?

But her apparent calm and detachment only served to fuel my fears that she had tired of me and was returning to her old ways. Leaving me alone, divorced with no path back to my ex, doomed to online dating and online / offline rejection.

So of course I exploded, all of my fears and insecurities a festering eruption that poisoned the conversation, the meal, the entire ambiance of the restaurant. And as she stormed off, her sweet tea just as bitter now as mine but dripping from my face and hair, I had to wonder if this had been her intention all along.

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Life can’t hurt if you avoid living it

I have a box I keep in my car.

A small, dark box with a name:

Soul Crusher.

The purpose of this box is straightforward.

Before exiting the car, I open the box, which is empty, and scoop the contents of my soul out of my body and into the box.

Everything I love, everything I hate, everything that gives me pleasure or pain, everything that excites me, engages me, repulses me, detracts from me.

I put it all in this box which I close up tight and leave in the car, safe from all interference.

OK, I’m not literally scooping anything out of my body. That would make a mess in the car, raising a lot of awkward questions every time I take it in to be detailed.

No, this is more of a visualization exercise.

You know, like the guy who would get home from work, go to a tree in his front yard, and “hang” all the woes from his job on the tree in order to leave them behind before he went inside to his family.

Kinda like that.

Why do I do this? Simple – pain management.

When you find yourself under a constant barrage of negative energy and mass shootings in the news and voter suppression on your twitter feed and a constant stream of other injustices and always having to be the rock other people cling to while the same bad things work to drown them too, you quickly reach the point where you are done.

Just done.

With all of it.

But that’s not really an option, is it?

So how do you make all the pain go away so you can function?

If you can’t stop the source(s) of the pain, stop the receiver.

Tuck your soul away in a box where no one and nothing can touch it, influence it, or look sideways at it.

Sure, life seems a bit…muffled, fuzzy around the edges, but it’s so much quieter. And you can still pay your bills and balance your checkbook and keep your car in its lane while you’re driving.

Which might not be the case if you’re being crushed under the weight of everything.

Everything crushing you can be distracting.

To be fair, my system isn’t perfect. I have had some minor setbacks.

The dog got into the box the first day I used it, before I started leaving it in the car.

Bitch ate my soul!

I was all for cutting it out right away, but the Missus (and the wailing Kiddos on their knees beseeching me) convinced me to wait for nature to take its course.

I’ll be honest with you, I washed that soul thoroughly, several times, and it still doesn’t smell (or feel) quite right since that incident.

And a couple of weeks ago I gave the kiddos the keys to the car so they could get their backpacks out of it, and they found the box.

And played with it.

And lost it.

Hid it, more likely.

I didn’t have a soul at that point, so I didn’t get too angry, but strong words were still used, and after several days of on and off searching, the soul (and the box) turned up, albeit a bit rough around the edges.

About a month into this regime, a really intense, well-dressed but still creepy gentleman approached me, offering to buy my soul. For a really, really good price.

I mean a don’t-worry-about-the-mortgage-or-needing-a-job-anymore good price.

But sell your soul to a stranger, and who knows what they’ll do with it (or what they’ll feed it to).

Better to tuck it away nice and cozy in a Soul Crusher box.

I’ve been boxing my semi-tangible, gooey side since the beginning of September and things are working out great now that I have my soul shedding routine down pat.

Life is way easier when you don’t have to live it.

Nothing gets under my skin.

Nothing makes me angry.

Nothing makes me sad.

I just don’t care.

It’s awesome.

While most of you are hoping I’ll tell you how to get your own Soul Crusher box (“Operators are standing by! Act now and we’ll throw in a Potato Masher and Melon Baller, absolutely free!”), there’s probably a naysayer or two out there muttering, “Now hang on, Ian, that’s horrible! You’ve excised your soul! The very essence of what makes you…you! You’re just an empty shell, shuffling along from moment to moment with no spring in your step, no twinkle in your eye, no joy or warmth.”

My response sans soul: Maybe. But along with that, also no walking around feeling like my guts are going rise up and burst out of my throat, no fear that we’ll make the world unlivable before my kids reach adulthood, no dread that I’m about to lose my job, have undiagnosed cancer, that I’m a failure as a husband and father, that I’m impotent, or that I’m going to bomb during the Improv show I’m in on Monday.

(Note to self: without my soul, I will bomb in that show. Must decide if I care enough to put it back on beforehand.)

I’m also a much more pleasant passenger without my soul, as backseat driving seems pointless.

That’s a fairly tepid response, but still true. Now, if my soul was burdening me right now, if all the angst and fear and anger and hatred and despair and passion it embodies was contaminating me right as you made your claim, the vigor and intensity of my response to your statement would leave you shaken and terrified and checking the locks on your doors every two minutes.

But lucky for you, I don’t have my soul right now.

The contents of my soul (that are detectable with a digital camera – film works better but for some strange reason I didn’t feel like bothering…)

 

Hiding Behind the Hydrangea, A Few Words Popped Into My Head. These Are Not (All Of) Those Words.

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, here with Part III, and here with Part IV. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: using the writing prompt book Write the Story, include the ten provided words (underlined in this text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in a disappointed and judgemental “Tut-tut!” from your mother.

An Unexpected Union

The key to finding the nurse was her ex-boyfriend. Not me, but the former boyfriend who came after me. Yes, after the tug-of-war between my wife and my carnival companion ended with me still married, my medical indiscretion moved on. I admit I kept tabs on her, even before my wife threw in the towel, sued for divorce, and took me for pretty much everything, including my prized hydrangea. So I know my lost love had played the field after me, casually dating, at different times, two brothers who owned a now defunct potato farm, a dentist, and then, more seriously, him.

The political cartoonist.

The major influence in her life since me.

The most recent ex.

I’d been more than keeping tabs on her at this point. I’d been following her, watching her, trying to find a way to win her back. The day they met was a terrible blow to me. They’d bumped into each other in line at a common, everyday sandwich shop. They chatted as they waited, then ended up ordering the same sandwich: ham and cheese on rye, Russian. He invited her to sit at his table, and soon they were brushing hands and laughing. Instant connection. I watched her scribble her phone number on the back of her receipt and hand it to him.

“Call me,” she said as she walked past me. I was in disguise as a broken homeless man, so she didn’t recognize me.

I had to recite the alphabet backwards three times before I was calm enough to get up and follow him to his place of work. I spent the next six months tracking him, learning his patterns and his secrets, preparing.

They broke up the night I’d planned to dispose of him. Money had been spent, wheels were in motion, but I called it off anyway. I felt sorry for him. He’d prepared an intimate dinner for two in the gazebo in his backyard. An exquisite meal. And over the salad, he proposed. And crying, she said no and left. Hiding behind a thriving hydrangea (that looked suspiciously familiar), neither noticed me.

I lost her after that. Gone from her usual haunts and from her clinic job; she was nowhere to be found. But he, the current ex, was obsessed. Desperate to find her, he looked high and low. He let himself go, lost his job, his house, his reputation. But none of that mattered compared to his quest.

Frankly, I found it more than a little disturbing.

Given our goals intersected, I let him do the work and just followed. And tonight, after months of searching, he finally found her.

And has drawn a knife! No!

…

I stopped him. I saved my beloved. Passed off my presence as a coincidence leading to a fateful but unexpected reunion. No, union. For she has taken me back! I am loved again!

So successful was this turn of events that I have won her complete and total trust in addition to her undying love. And so tonight, before sharing her bed, I will be sworn in to the Brotherhood of the Carnival. To be with my true love and her true family forever.

 

The Controversial President Weight Loss Diet is going to be HUUGE! The Biggest, Most Beautiful Diet Ever!

So two weeks ago I announced my intention to see how fad weight loss diets worked on curing me of being an a-hole. The first diet covered was the Watermelon Diet, and it didn’t work out so well. I gained four pounds and was served with divorce papers. For more details on that diet, or the protocol I’m following for this study, see my first post here.

My examination of the next diet on my list ended up getting delayed because I unwittingly decided to try the Really Sick Diet (brought to you by Kiddos Who Don’t Cover Their Mouths When They Sneeze™). While the Really Sick Diet is great for weight loss, my informal canvassing of those within hearing range of my sickbed suggests it makes you more of a whiny jerk rather than less.

So not very comfortable or helpful on the asshole front.

Just as well, if you ask me. I’d rather be an asshole than sick like that again.

So now, a week late, I bring you, just in time for the midterms, the Controversial President Weight Loss Diet!

The way this diet is supposed to work: you listen to every piece of audio and watch every snippet of video of the President of the United States that you can lay your hands on. That includes any and all Access: Hollywood hot mic recordings out there.

Although it’s been around for decades, lately proponents of this diet have been swearing by it. In the last two years alone, adherents have seen the pounds just roll off. To the point of endangering their lives!

Some limitations of this diet:

• Tends to only work in four, eight, or if the VP gets elected, twelve-year cycles. A sixteen-year cycle is theoretically possible, but far too depressing to consider. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, an impeachment might break this cycle.
• If you like the current president, this diet indicates that you may suffer from a severe case of psychosis and weight loss is the least of your problems. You may also experience grossly inappropriate bliss that results in blackout eating.
• If you don’t like the current president, you will lose your appetite, your will to live, and all sense of hope. You will gain a newfound sense of urgency and an overwhelming desire to vote in the next election. Also, in addition to weight loss and dark thoughts, blackout drinking is not uncommon.

Now those are the weight loss considerations of the Controversial President Weight Loss Diet. But my thesis is on the impact of said diet on making me a better human being and less of a shifty prick.

Here, I am sad to report, the benefits are less clear.

Week 2
Diet: The Controversial President Weight Loss Diet

Description: Basically, endure as close to a lethal dose of exposure to the sitting president as you can without causing permanent brain damage. On the other hand, you can eat and drink as much as you want, should you retain the urge to eat.

Purpose: Leave you so nauseous as to be incapable of feeding yourself.

Amount of president consumed in the last two years: Way, way, way too much.

A-Hole Index score: (Mine, not his!) 5.0. Respondents rated me either a 0 or a 10 on the A-Hole index, with nothing in-between. I had an even number of respondents, the 0s and 10s were evenly split, and so the average was 5.

Net result: Now this is where it gets interesting. About half the respondents, when interacting with me during this period, said I displayed newfound humanity, filled them with warmth and hope, and they looked forward to seeing me at our polling station Tuesday (whatever that means). The other half blocked me on Facebook, but not before telling me to (variously) “Eff off, snowflake!”, “Go back to your own country, snowflake!” and, most perplexing, “Maga, snowflake!”

I’m not sure what ‘maga’ means, but from context I’m guessing it’s pretty bad.

So a mixed result. Stay tuned for next week’s update, when I look at the All Peanut Diet. Hopefully my legume allergy won’t cause any problems with this one.

And no matter what party you belong to, VOTE!

 

In Search Of A Miracle: The Watermelon Diet

Lately I’ve been reading some food blogs (because yes, when you hear my name you automatically think “foodie” and/or more commonly “Ugh, I’ve suddenly lost my appetite”) and stumbled across a couple where people cured their chronic illnesses by changing their diet.

Man, that is awesome news.

Because I have a chronic illness.

And all the doctors I’ve gone to have shrugged their shoulders and said, “Nope, nothing modern medicine can do about this.”

Actually, that’s how I ended up reading food blogs. The last doctor I saw said to me, “You’re screwed from a medical perspective. Maybe try a change of diet? And please, don’t come back.”

My chronic illness?

Sometimes I kinda act like an asshole.

OK, if you listen to the words my kids are always throwing at me, I am an asshole.

And short of a lobotomy, which has some pretty severe side effects, there is no drug I can take to rid myself (and my friends and family) of this affliction.

Which is not to say that the Missus and kiddos did not strongly advocate for the lobotomy. And even found an old doctor of mine willing to perform it.

But the day before the scheduled procedure, I discovered the food blogs.

Did you know there are diets out there to cure everything?

Yes, everything.

Cancer.

Hemorrhoids.

Bone spurs.

Chronic back pain.

Explosive diarrhea.

Weight loss.

(Though the weight loss diets tend to be contraindicated when it comes to explosive diarrhea treatments, so don’t combine those two!)

Well, they can cure almost everything. The one area where food blog science is lacking any real data is when it comes to treatments for chronic, inflamed anusry.

That’s the only place they’re lacking hard data. For everything else, these diets are thoroughly, painstakingly studied and understood.

So seeing this gaping…well, gap, I’ve decided to make my mark on society. Contribute my contribution to science. Aim carefully and take my shot for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

I am going to test all these miracle cure diets I’ve found online and…wait for it…

See if they help with my dickishness.

I’m dead serious and I’m going to follow a disciplined approach. That means I’m going to keep a log, weigh and measure everything, all that numbery, note-takery stuff.

I’ll even throw in some graphs at the end. With my mad PowerPoint skills, it’s gonna look WICKED AWESOME!

Tracking food intake is relatively easy, I can hear you saying. But how do you measure your level of prickish?

I’m glad you asked. I’ll ask my friends and family to rate me on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being totally chill, 5 a touch uptight, and 10 a raging, full-on sphincter burst of an unholy magnitude.

Plus, to control for personal bias, I intend to approach strangers on the bus, at movie theaters, in cross walks, and in shopping malls and ask them how much of an asshole they think I am.

You see? I’ve put a lot of thought into how to accurately gauge my ass-hattery.

But you know what’s even better than this major contribution to science I’m making?

I’m going to blog about it too!

For the purposes of anonymity, I will only report the average A-Hole Index score I get rather than individual scores on the blog.

And I will subtract out the lowest and highest scores to prevent one individual skewering that week’s results. You know, just like they do in the Olympics.

So without further ado, here is my first food blog entry:

Week 1
Diet: The Watermelon Diet

Description: Eat only watermelon all week. Because of its high moisture content, drink no fluids. Just consume watermelon. Eat at least two watermelons a day, though there is some disagreement in the literature I’ve found about whether a third watermelon is safe or not. There was also a fair amount of debate about seedless vs. heirloom (or seeded). To protect my own health, I will split the difference and aim for two and a half watermelons, one and a quarter with seeds and one and a quarter without.

Purpose: As I understand it, the original purpose of this diet, before I commandeered it, was to boost your immunity against scurvy. According to its proponents, eating two watermelons a day (and nothing else) allows you to skip the tedious daily lime or orange regime common to non-watermelon diets.

Amount of watermelon consumed this week: 63 pounds, 17 ounces.

A-Hole Index score: 11.2

Net result: Reliably informed (by all parties) I am still an asshole. It has been posited by some that this diet actually made me worse. However, I don’t blame the diet. I blame the unexpected onset of explosive diarrhea two days in.

Though I briefly toyed with the idea of an all-seedless run, based on these preliminary results (and my now chronic explosive diarrhea), I am forced to abandon the Watermelon Diet as non-efficacious.

Hopefully next week’s diet will go better. And harden my stool…

 

Dammit, Jim, I’m a Doctor not a Writing Prompt follower!

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, and here with Part III. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: include the ten provided words (underlined in the text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in a slow, agonizing death (or equivalently, parenthood).

In my last “Write The Story” writing prompt post, I closed by promising the next entry would be out of this world. Given that a significant portion of the Earth’s orbit has been traversed since that post, the description is even more apt now.

Chasing the Enemy

Captain Kirk stared at the viewscreen, his escaped quarry but a blur far ahead of them.

“Scotty, I need more power!” Kirk shouted. The demon carnival cult nurse, possibly from the future, possibly from the past, but definitely not from this time, would not elude him again. The memory of the singing lute saleswoman, an innocent bystander phasered into ash in front of the Church of the Empty Void cathedral, hit him like a hammer. Kirk would not return to 55 Cancri B and the elder high priests without that nurse in his custody and ready to be turned over to the Church and its harsh justice.

Kirk remembered the solemn oath he’d made to the Church’s Popess, her ceremonial parakeet flitting back and forth across the cavernous audience room as he spoke: “I will not rest, your Holiness, I will not pause or deviate from my task, until I have captured that freakish time-travelling medic and placed her in your custody.”

Popess Hildegard Penelope Fiona Fabberblast III nodded. “We hear your oath, Federation Captain James T. Kirk, echoing majestically in this Empty Void, and we are pleased.” The parakeet, Father Commander Toby Hashtag McFizzBin IV, alighted on the Popess’ shoulder and pooped his approval. “Ah yeah,” he warbled.

The Popess smiled. “It is destiny, Federation Captain James T. Kirk. See the poop of approval the Empty Void has bestowed upon your words.” She gestured to the greenish brown blob slowly spreading across her ceremonial tank top, settling in among the older, fainter stains already present. “Go in Peace. Go in Justice.”

The Popess sat down on the Holy Folding Chair of Receiving and lifted both gilded loafers high. Kirk, following Church custom, knelt and kissed both heels to seal his commitment to the task. Then he rose, smiled rakishly, and said, “You’ve gotten something on your tank top. Do you need any help taking it off?”

Now, three days and four dead red shirts later, the diabolic nurse was within his grasp. Once he had her, he could return to 55 Cancri B, return to his Most Holy of lovers, and deliver sweet, downy justice.

“More power, Scotty! She’s getting away!”

The lights flickered, the engines rumbled, then all fell silent as the ship came to a stop. The devil nurse moved out of sensor range.

“Tha’s done it, Captain,” came Scotty’s response. “We’ve cracked a dilithium crystal!”

Kirk pounded the arm of his chair, hissing in frustration.

 

 

 

I’m not getting older, dammit! The world is just getting darker!

So I have a problem. One that requires more than a little blue pill to resolve.

Oh, if only a pill could solve this problem!

Or, for that matter, even a suppository.

I am deeply saddened to report that when it gets dark, and I mean very, very dark, I can’t see.

This is particularly disturbing because I do my best work at night. When it’s, you know, dark.

Yes, when my body most desperately needs to rest and rejuvenate itself, my brain is all, “Hold my beer.”

But in a good, non-alcoholic, non-electoral sort of way.

As you might be starting to suspect, I wrote this entry during the day. But I had no choice, given I can’t see at night.

You see, since everyone else in my household have brains that listen to their bodies, they’re all asleep at night.

Or should be. Get back to bed right now, Kiddo!

Sorry about that. Because of this (nearly) mass slumber, I can’t just flip on all the lights, crank up the volume on my .mod files, and take care of business.

Oh no. Everyone else in my household gets cranky when I turn the productivity up to 11 past, well, eleven. Suddenly the Missus and the one kiddo who actually does sleep at night are making snide remarks about needing rest and don’t I have work in the morning and look you’re making the dogs bark and oh my gawd what is that racket you are listening to it should be illegal to distribute it!

(My hearing is fine. Spider by They Might Be Giants is meant to be listened to loud.)

In order to appease the Missus, I turn everything off, go to bed, and when dawn’s surly light finally returns, make yet another medical appointment.

My doctor always sort of wilts and sighs when he walks into the exam room and sees me, like a blow-up punching bag suddenly deflating after one punch too many, then mutters “Oh no, not again.”

While most people would see this reaction and think, “Uh oh, I must be really sick!” I’m not worried. I’ve been here before. Seen the doc about this many times. And after the poorly hidden but inevitable eye roll, he always tells me the same thing:

“Still not getting more exercise? I really think you should focus more on that. Not being able to see in the dark? That’s nothing to worry about. You’re just getting old. Try turning on the lights.”

I am not getting old!

And turn on the lights?? Did he not read the above paragraph about other people in the house wanting it dark so they can sleep?

Since modern medical science has cast me aside despite my numerous co-pays, I was forced to do my own research.

My own experiments.

And I figured it out.

(So start writing up those Nobel Prize nominations, in case they won’t accept my self-nomination.)

I’m not getting older. Nope.

The world…is getting darker.

Hear me out. Once you see the evidence you will drop your jaws in amazement.

(Or disbelief. But if you stay silent, I can still imagine it’s amazement. So hush.)

Here’s a modern-day keyboard. Notice anything about it, aside from the dirt?

Who uses this? Members of the band Disaster Area?

That’s right. It’s super dark.

Here’s what it looks like at night with all the lights in the house in the mandated OFF position:

The real reason schools started mandating touch typing classes…

Now you can see my problem (or more specifically, can’t).

And don’t tell me to get a back-lit keyboard! I’ve tried that! They require you to press a key combo to turn on the back-lighting.

Can you see any of the keys in the dark on the above keyboard? Can you? Then how the hell am I supposed to see them, hmm?

Think about it. Their design solution when you can’t see the keyboard is to require you to hit specific keys on the keyboard so you can see the keys. On the keyboard! It’s Kafkaesque!

They’ll be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes, let me tell you!

But, I perceive you mumbling as you nervously edge away, what do keyboards have to do with my supposition that the world is getting darker?

Well, aside from black reflecting back less light into the environment (ergo, making the surrounding environment darker), we once had, long ago, better keyboards.

And by better I don’t mean clickier (though that was better too). I mean beige:

If my sunglasses were handy, I’d put them on before using this keyboard

See what this pinnacle of keyboard engineering looks like in normal lighting? Compare that to yet another modern keyboard (this time grey):

“We think beige is too bright. Waa waa. If black is too dark, how about we meet in the middle and try gray?” No. Just no.

But check it out what happened when I photographed my, if the Keyboard Industrial Complex PR hacks are to be believed, “old, tired, and passé” vintage keyboard in the dark.

WTFtl;dr! It actually got brighter:

CAPS LOCK on because DAMN IT, YES, I’M EXCITED ABOUT THIS KEYBOARD! AND NO COLLUSION! TOTALLY NO COLLUSION! COVFEFE!

Beige is a color I can type on in the dark. Because with beige, the cold encroachment of darkness is stopped in its sneaky, disabling tracks. I can look down and see the damn keys I need to press and then press them.

Presto! No back-light, front-light, or side-light required.

And it’s not just the keyboard. Tell me, how am I going to find that black CD eject button, cleverly placed, of course, right next to the black power button, on this particular, recently manufactured computer?

Hell, in this photo I have a spotlight on the chassis and I’m using a flash, and you still can’t see anything (except the dust bunny residue)!

But take away the above modern, fancy-pants, 1080p, USB 3.0, multi-core and multi-threaded (guess the color of the thread – hint: it’s BLACK) super computer and replace it with a late-80s, early-90s computer, and what do you get?

You get this, a right proper computing machine:

The IBM “Just Try And Make The Room This Is In Dark” PS/2 P70. They don’t build ’em like this any more. Can’t afford to. Too much lead needed for the chassis.

That’s right. I closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and then tented the entire house (due to termites) before taking this picture, and it still looks like I’m standing outside on a bright summer day.

That’s how much frickin’ light beige computers give off!

Now it might be the termiticide talking, but I think I’d be able to use my computer at night just fine…if it were made out of beige. But sadly, as amazing as the above computer is, it does lack one feature deemed unnecessary in the 1980s and 1990s:

WiFi.

---

Do you have tales of horror trying to use an albedo-challenged computer in the wee hours? Share them in the comments so we can commiserate together and maybe put together a kickstarter to make a modern beige computer!

(Please comment. The Missus thinks I’m nuts and I need you to help me prove her wrong.)