The Benefits of
Monogamy
Monotony

In order to ensure I can pay April's rent, these last few days I've been forced to descend deep into the bowels of the newspaper I occasionally show up to work at to where they chain up their data entriests. They open the multiple padlocks, feed the guard dogs some mutton chops, and warn me of the tripwire and covered spike filled holes as they lead me to where the Gollum-like drones that rarely see the light of day sit row upon row, hunched over Commodore 64s under an ever increasing tsunami wave of dot matrix printer tearoffs.

Oh, the good ole Distribution Department. Where the unskilled workers and outdated machines (or vice versa) go to have whatever meager amount of contribution they still have left inside of them sucked out. Where the oldtimers go that have nothing and no one to retire to. Where you can't tell if your neighbor's wrist scars are from a failed suicide attempt or one of the many operations they've had to relieve the pain from their carpal tunnel syndrome.

Where the answer to that question doesn't really matter.

Whether it's stacking, folding or stuffing thirteen thousand invoices into twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety nine envelopes (there always seems to be one envelope too few), or switching sixty thousand accounts from "P7" to "7day", it's a place where brains are discouraged. And that is exactly what I'm looking for these days. My brain has gotten me into nothing but trouble lately. So I plug my discman into whatever socket I can find that isn't visibly sparking and switch it on. I unplug my brain from my brain stem and switch it off.

And so begins 6 hours of data entry...

63823531, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823532, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823533, SCM, 03106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823534, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823535, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823536, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, ENTER, 63823537, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823538, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823539, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823540, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823541, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823542, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823543, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823544, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823545, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823546, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823547, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823548, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823549, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823550, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR, ENTER, 63823551, SCM, 033106, 7DAY, CSR...