Boredom is more powerful than a nuclear explosion. Whereas a nuclear explosion will completely rearrange your living room, it will only do it once. Boredom can make you rearrange it again and again and again.
And take communications. Boredom is the mother of all creative communication. I'm sure the first letter writers in the early years of America were getting pretty dang bored writing a letter, sealing it up, putting it on a ship and waiting a couple years to get an answer back from Auntie Hortense, who was making her life less boring by boning gold prospectors in San Fran. Then came one exceedingly bored man who said Hey, let me just take old Auntie's letter and get on a horse and ride until I walk funny, then find someone else to continue and so on until Auntie can put down the opium pipe and squint at her mail.
Boredom, and a complete lack of tolerance for idiots, is why I watch QVC shopping channel pretty much exclusively. I tried channel-flipping, and invariably I'd land on some woman hysterical because I have belly fat, or some moron shrieking on the news about the whole illegal alien thing (ILLEGAL, do you idiot activists even GET that? Where is my ammo clip?). So I just put the tv on the QVC channel, and read while I have those silly women nattering about stretch sequinned gaucho pants in the background for company.
You'd think the internet would be a good solution to boredom, wouldn't you? And if you had a high tolerance for fools, you'd be right. Most days, I don't mind when I start reading a site and realize the author is a religious nut, or a liberal fuckwit, or an activist asshole. I just blip on over to something more enlightening, like animal porn. But other days, I cannot TAKE IT ANY MORE and am in danger of throwing the monitor through the window if I have to read one more..... well, let's step back and take a breath now, shall we?
There. Better.
The GM1 is also subject to boredom, but I blame male ADD. If it doesn't have breasts, it can't hold a man's interest more than a gnat's fart. (Unless he's gay, then I guess it would have to be testicles. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just more dangly and funny-looking.) He tends to call me when he's driving at work from plant A to facility B, or when he has to fix something routine, so I can provide for him the background drone that QVC provides for me. He pays about as much attention to the content as I do, it's all in the amibiance for us both.....
GM1: So then the flux capacitor extendor went bad and I .... *sound of clanking* where is the gimmy bolt?
Me: I'm glad you're having a busy day, is it raining there yet?
GM1: Damn flange wonker. Why did I connect......? Oh yeah, it's.....*clank bang*
Me: It rained toads all morning, so I went out and collected a few for dinner.
GM1: This should fit on the... no, it's too.... *clink ping bonk*... but.... the....*crack*
Me: Then I thought, what if I lick one? Maybe I'll get stoned from it, so I did and it turned into a unicorn prince.....
GM1: .... *crunch* son of a bitch..... *rattle slam crackle*.... motherfu... oh, there it is....
Me: But he was too prissy so I cut his head off with the nail clippers and we're having stew for dinner.
GM1: Yeah, stew is good. Can you make those cheesy biscui.... *bonk flipflipflip* .... shit.
Me: Okay honey, gotta go.
GM1: *jiggle slam*... so if I plug in this end, maybe.... *sizzle crackle ZAP*
All in all, I understand boredom is a necessary part of life. It causes lots of things, like television and feng shui and random bursts of electricity. Come to think of it, boredom created this post, too. Probably why you read it, huh? Well, there you go.
Posted by LeeAnn at March 28, 2006 10:09 AM