The Gathering Storm |  Satisfaction!

The horror visited upon me when I opened that box I would not wish on more than 17% of my enemies. Being unarmed, and no puppies within kicking distance, I had little choice but to uncharacteristically vent my frustration on the actual source of my woe. So I fired off the following e-rant:


From: Brian Moore
Subject: Score One For Entropy
Date: 23 March 2004 11:20:04
To: Despair Customer Disservice

I placed and received a recent order with your company,
which arrived in a timely fashion. Despite that efficiency
I was looking forward to the false sense of kindredness
between myself and the products made by the cold dead
"soul" of your corporation. Three of the four items
resembled the impressions given by your website (kudos
on cracking that Front Page registration code). However,
one item -- the "Burnout" desktopper -- deviated from specs.
The frame wasn't so much intact as it was no longer intact,
and the glass meant to protect the image during my frequent
sobbing attacks was cracked along the diagonal. On the plus
side, the bubblewrap appears to be undamaged, save for some
recreational popping on my part.

At first, I thought the state of the desktopper made
a brilliant statement -- broken like my spirit, but not
quite shattered like my dreams. Almost admirable in its
overreaching demonstration of pluck. But then I looked
at the shipping order and saw this e-mail address and
thought of writing. You heard me -- I knew the 'topper
was defective because it actually *motivated* me to write.
Clearly neither of us wanted that to happen; I mean to say,
if I wanted to be motivated I wouldn't pretend to have
violent stomach cramps every time the boss stopped by for
a chinwag.

So you know which way to point when you mock me in your
breakroom (do they have breakrooms out there in Bangalore,
by the way?), the manifest gives it as online order #187495.
I can only imagine the number of digits is purely for show,
unless you accidentally gave me your CIO's prisoner number.
In any case I await your response as to resolving this matter,
which I can only imagine will be an imperative ending with
"off", "in your dreams", or "yourself and the horse you rode
in on." All in all, it will make a more valuable use of
university resources than I would have today without it.

Oh Lord -- all this typing makes me wonder how easy it
would be to finish my latest project if I just sat down
and did it. I think I'm going to be sick.

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Brian D. Moore|
Ph.D. Research Associate|"The optimist thinks that this is the best
Rice U. Dept. of Phys & Ast|of all possible worlds, and the pessimist
6100 Main St.|knows it." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer
Houston, TX 77005-1892|
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The Gathering Storm |  Satisfaction!