Oh the Humanity...

There is no way to gussy this up, so the plain hard truth will have to do...the corporation that I work for is extremely cruel. No, it isn't the pay (for what I do, I'm actually paid fairly well, but don't tell them that) or the hours or my boss. Nope, none of those. It's the friggin' vendor displays that they allow by our cafeteria.

Normally, there will be some vendor that will set-up shop to hawk their wares about twice a month. Sometimes it's one of our "preferred providers" like Nextel or Chrysler - you know people that corporate has worked some sort of discount from. More often it will be some charity that corporate supports or some small jewelery shop that makes dragonflies out of paperclips and some colored tissue paper. Or perhaps it is yet another in the endless parade of "diversity" installations. I can usually walk by all of these - I would say boothes, but that is entirely too grandiose a word for a folding table and a couple of chairs - with nary a second thought as I head to the cafeteria for my daily fix of moderately priced, moderately palatable food. Today, however, was different. What I saw today stopped me in my tracks, stare in wonder and nearly breakdown in tears. For today, the HDTV's made there way into the atrium.

Yes, that's right we have a new corporate discount partner and they were here showing off High Definition Plasma televisions. I want one...I need one...Damn it!, I deserve one. Of course, I can't possibly afford one so perhaps I should take back that statement about being paid fairly well. On my salary, if I didn't buy food, walked to and from work, never went out with friends and never visited my family, I may perhaps be able to afford on in about three years. Wait, I take that back, we receive a 17% discount on all merchandise purchased through this new discount partner so make that 30 months.

It's not for lack of trying that I still don't have a HD Plasma or LCD TV. I put it on my Christmas list, my birthday list, and I even tried to sneak it onto my mother's Sam's Club shopping list. Still, I sit my butt down virtually every night and watch a standard, 27" television. Is there no justice?!? Have I not suffered enough from not being able to see each and every single pore on Jennifer Aniston's face? Yes, I have. So please, have pity on a poor, addicted soul who's life just won't be complete until a 60" HD Plasma screen is mounted to his wall for all the world to see. If you throw in a surround sound, there's no telling what I might do.

AS IF IT COULDN'T GET WORSE
Right after coming back from the cafeteria (carefully averting my eyes so I wouldn't be tempted to run over to the HDTV display, grab one and try to make it to the door before I was tackled by security) I received another shock. One of my co-workers, who shall remain nameless, wanted to look up some information on some basketball player or whatever...it was sports related so I tuned out. In any case, another co-worker said to go to Google. Well, she is a Yahoo! fiend and doesn't use Google so had a few questions, including what is the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. I smirked and sauntered over all ready to explain what it was and give a perfect example. So there I am, standing over her desk telling her to enter "musings adulthood" and press the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which she does.

It was not this page that came up, oh no. It was some schlock site that hasn't been updated in 2 years but featured a picture of President Bush on one of those "work inspirational" posters about integrity. After the shock, horror and the small fainting spell passed, I went back to my cube and began to see how far I've fallen in the rankings. I scanned over 30 pages of Google results and no listing for this page. I could barely keep myself from crying. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Not even Taco could have felt more devasted when he realized that his cover of "Puttin On the Ritz" was a big as he was going to get then what I felt when I found out that that I was bumped down the Google rankings...way, way, way, way down.

So now it is my mission to reclaim that top spot. I don't know how, I don't know when, and I don't know how many people will get hurt in the process, but I don't care. I want to be #1 again when you type "musings adulthood" in Google and feel lucky. And I get right on it after I've gotten an HD Plasma television.