betrayed.

i am writing from school. i want to tell you a story.

once there was a little girl named charity. she lived under an awful curse; she was doomed to be in school for the rest of her life. at first it was fun. she liked learning, and she met new people all the time, who also liked learning. she loved learning about important things, like spelling, and fractions, and geography.

gradually, though, she began to realize that the things she was learning were less practical and more disturbing. her homework came to be dominated by words that ended in -ization, like standardization, and institutionalization, and professionalization. she also began to notice that all her friends had left school. while she was typing the word "rationalization" for the 437th time, her friends were signing marriage licenses, housing deeds, and car titles. this came to disturb her more and more as she remained in school, learning about routinization, watching her friends all get salaried jobs while her own bank accounts got smaller and smaller, and the price of a loaf of bread came to take up a larger and larger proportion of her income.

she was unhappy.

one day she and her roommate decided to move into their own places. her roommate, who was no longer in school, moved in with her boyfriend, who was no longer in school, and charity moved into her own apartment. at first she really liked it. it was in a very nice neighborhood, very close to a pizza shop, a grocery store, a diner, and a video store. she was happy, and her cats were happy.

finally she decided; she decided it was time to get internet access in her apartment. she knew it was expensive, but she felt she needed it. she called the cable company, who said that they could get someone out to her in two weeks. she hated to wait, but decided she would. before the agreed upon time, she was very excited. then she realized that she didn't have any money. maybe she should work more at her parttime job, she thought. then she realized that she wasn't getting enough work done for school. maybe she should cut back on her hours at her parttime job, she though. then she checked her bank account.

panic set in, again.

the day of the cable installation finally arrived. the man came and fiddled around with everything. charity watched him nervously, anxious to have internet access, but scared about the financial committment, trying not to imagine the worst case scenario. then the cable man said "i can't do anything until your landlord unlocks the basement." she called the landlord. 45 minutes later, approximately 30 minutes after the cable man had left, the landlord called back. they arranged to meet the next morning, although charity had to miss an appointment to be there. at least it will be resolved, she thought.

10 o'clock came. her landlord came. he walked around the property. charity waited. 45 minutes later, the cable man came. the landlord was upset because he was getting ready to leave, but he opened the basement anyway. after much fiddling around, the cable man finally hooked up charity's computer to the internet. she was very happy. he left.

she realized later that he had neglected to turn on the cable television, which she had felt guilty about getting in the first place. but she didn't want to pay for it AND not get it. she called back. then she realized that the landlord would have to come out again and she fretted with the knowledge that she would again have to coordinate the schedules of such hard to schedule people. oh, she fretted. she called the landlord and left a message, and enjoyed at least the newfound capability to check her email from home.

then the next morning, she woke up, looking forward to her first full day of having internet, satisfied that at least she wasn't paying for the cable she wasn't getting (she made sure of this when she called the night before).

then her computer crashed.

she lost everything.

pictures: pictures from canada, pictures from her family holidays recently, pictures she could not replace, pictures she could not remember. music: music from her mom's cd library, music from libraries of people who were no longer in town, music from her own library of cds loaned and traded all over the place. work. work. work. work.

she fretted. but nothing could be done.

so she went back to school. where she remains to this day and will remain for all of eternity.

be careful children. it can happen to you.