Ok, that’s it – I’m doing the exorcism.
First off – going to work in the early morning hours on a Saturday is like stepping out onto the set of an expensive zombie movie. Nothing moving except the few late night revellers who still haven’t found their way home. They look like zombies, act like zombies, drool like zombies. They probably smell like zombies too, but I don’t plan on getting close enough to find out. If they have brain-breath I just don’t want to know.
I get to work. Now we move from the zombie genre to the twilight zone. We’ve got one of those automated doors, you know – insert key card, door opens. Modern magic. Except … not so much today.
I’ve had a couple of days off and as far as I’ve been able to tell everything has been running smoothly in my absence. So of course the first thing that happens when I get back is that the door stops working. Did someone light a black candle for me? Am I cursed? Have I developed some kind of freaky superpower that makes everything mechanical and technical fuck up as soon as I am within spitting distance? Do we have a ghost in the machine?
You can open the door manually as well, luckily. And once the initial anger died down this provided me with endless entertainment today. You see, people are basically sheep. If the door opens automatically for you every time you enter or exit this creates the assumption that the door will always open for you. As we all know assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. What I didn’t realise is that this kind of technology robs people of their natural intelligence. People lose the ability to understand the advanced technology of THE DOOR. Today, typically, people have walked up to the door … and stopped. Looked at the door, not inquisitively, not angrily, not accusingly, but with the bewildered look of a sheep. There’s a sense of “Duh? Bah? Eh?” and then slowly little cogs and wheels come alive and start spinning. “Door? Door not opening? Eh, there’s something I can do here…What was that again?”
I’m not kidding. I’ve even heard a couple of “how do you get the door to open?”-type comments. And I want to say “Come on people, it’s not rocket science, open the door and the door shall be opened”. But I can’t – because I am not allowed to snark. I want to, but I am not allowed. Turn handle. Open door. Step through door. Presto – you are on the other side of the door. Mission accomplished. Should you feel the need to enter – repeat process until you have acquired the Mastery of the Opening of the Door.
I am not even going to get in to how the internet connection kept crapping out on me, because you never know – it might be raining in the attic or something. But I do feel it is time for me to bring my rosary and holy water. One exorcism coming up.
Zombies, and demons and ghosts.
Oh, my.
ROL
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