Microserfs

the remainder of the day wore the smug, victorious grin of one who has escaped the hungry jaw of bar-code industrialism. We Gap victims, on the other hand, fast-forwarded to an entirely McNuggetized world of dweeb-free, standardized consumable units.

We got back to work, and Dusty got to thinking “It would appear that to be a dweeb becomes a political statement — a means of saying that ‘I choose not to ally myself with the dark forces of amoral, transnational, bar- coded, GATT-based trade practices.’”

“So let’s be dweebs,” I said.

“But how to be a dweeb, then, Dan?”

“Well, you could maybe make your own clothes,” said Bug, but we all said, “Naaaahhh …” if for no other reason than the fact that nobody has free time these days.

“You could buy clothing that predates computerized inventorying,” suggested Susan, but then Bug replied that you’d become a retro fashion victim.

In the end, we all figured that the only way to be a dweeb was to have your mother buy your clothes for you at, like, Sears or JC Penney.

Or have Michael buy them.

Susan couldn’t be less subtle about her entrancement with Emmett if she tried. And Emmett’s so thick, he misses every clue. It’s a wonder humans ever manage to propagate.

Today for Susan it was hotpants and a Barbarella mesh top with plastic hoop earings and a Valley of the Dolls wig. She was like a 1967 Life magazine cover. This outfit, coupled with the day’s warm weather, Todd’s working shirtless, and with Dusty’s rehearsing Iron Rose IV competition practice sessions (Karla and Susan learning the poses)—the office now reeks of sex. This is not natural!

WEDNESDAY

Abe:

Someone scrawled on the bathroom cubicle floor here:

MATES = BRAKES

Below it someone else wrote:

OVERWOAK = POLYGAMY

MICROSOFT! You know how it is here - singles overwork to make themselves shine, but the *Marrieds* become the managers, and move up the ladder more quuickly, Elearnor Rigbies need not apply.

Got yesterdays faz. [I’d faxed along the instruction kits to a Lego 9129 Space Station Kit.] I think yours was the first fax I’ve had in years. Fanes are like email from 1987. Thanks.

Susan walked in tonight after dinner clutching a handful of crappy little objects: a bent fork, a bruised apple, a Barbie’s head, and the plastic top from a Tylenol container. She laid them out in a row on the floor and asked Todd, “Hey, Todd, what’s this?”

We all looked at this sad little row of debris and none of us had a clue.

Todd said, “I dunno.”

She said, “It’s a Russian garage sale.”

We all said, “Ooooh …” expecting Todd to freak out, and he did get huffy.

“I know, I know,” she said preemptively, “the Russians are supposed to be our friends now. But face it, Todd — they’ll never get it right. Capitalism is something that’s ingrained in you from birth. There’s more to developing a market economy than pulling a switch and suddenly being a capitalist overnight. As a child you need to read about Lucy’s 5-cent psychiatry booth in Charlie Brown; game shows; mailing away for Sea Monkeys — it’s all a part of being ‘encapitalized.’”

She removed the Barbie head from the lineup of objects: “Probably too good.”

Later on, Susan and Karla were cackling together. I asked them what about and they shot guilty looks at each other.

“Barbies,” said Karla.

Susan added, “It’s like every girl I know did all this incredibly sick sex shit with their Barbies, and in the end the head and/or limbs would fall off and you’d have to hide her but your Mom always found the dismembered Barbie and would say, ‘Gee, honey — what happened to Barbie?’”

“Oh God — you’d just be dying of shame, remembering the debauch that landed her in the degraded state.”

(More cackling.)

“I remember when my Barbie discovered my brother’s G.I. Joe’s,” said Karla. “Talk about a spree. She was in fragments within an hour.”

“Oh my God — me too!” said Susan.

“Hair gone, too?”

“Yup.”

I was feeling a bit excluded and cut out discreetly, leaving more cackles in my wake. How can the two of them both have done the exact same things?

My body no longer kills me when I come back from the gym. However, I had a moment of total humiliation today: theoretically my ideal body weight is 172 pounds and I weigh 153 lbs. The woman at the gym calibrated my fat/water/meat/bone ratios, made an inward gasp and I asked her what was wrong. She said (after a tentative, you-have-cancer pause), “You’re what’s technically known as a ‘thin fat person.”’

It was so degrading. Not only am I skinny, but what meat I do possess isn’t meat at all, but lard. I have to burn that off before I can even begin beefing up. I don’t even deserve the honor of calling myself carbon-based, let alone silicon-based — maybe I’m based on one of those useless elements like boron that don’t do anything.

I’m not telling Karla about this one.

THURSDAY

Word leaked out at the office that I’m a thin fat person (the gym lady blabbed to Todd) and I had to endure a barrage of crude jokes at my expense for 14 hours. Todd pulled me aside and gave me a canister of amino acids and a pep talk.

Dad started work today at Delta. He popped into the Oop! office to show his face on the way back. Susan, Bug, and Michael pleaded for some access into the Delta system or at least something they could start to hack with. Michael wanted to add ten million frequent flyer points to his account: “I want to fly to the South Pole, first class, Saudi Airlines, with a sleeper seat, and Reuben Kincaid sleep goggles made of passenger pigeon breast feathers.”

Across the street from our house, these little kids were having a tiny garage sale: a single, spine-worn copy of Cosmopolitan, two filthy Big Bird toys, a paperback of Future Shock, and a cowboy boot remover. It was so depressing — and eerily similar to Susan’s joke about Russian garage sales. Karla said, “Susan’s right. The Russians’ll never catch up.”

Ethan, over for a visit, said, “Au contraire, pal, they’ll probably outlap us shortly.”

Dusty was barfing all over the office sink when I came in this morning. She said she’d been working out too hard at the gym.

Abe: