“Maybe you should write war stories.”
I look at Shelley over a fine mist of alcohol. Shelley’s a journalist and friend in the industry I met nearly 10 years ago.
We were in a pretty nice bar on the Upper West Side, good music playing on the juke, the proprietor and his flunky preparing Shelley’s sandwich and taking their sweet time about it. I didn’t mind. It meant I had all her attention.
“I’ve never fought in a war.”
“No, a**hole. I meant that as a tech support guy, you’ve probably seen a lot of things. Our readers would probably like to read about that.”
“Oh. Right.”
She had that right. They called ’em CEOs but I’ve always thought of them as OECs. Organisms Exhibiting Childishness. The shinier the gadget, the more they liked it, even more than the swank penthouses, voluptuous automobiles and even more voluptuous females that normally orbited them.
Like a bunch of magpies, with about a magpie’s comprehension of how things worked.
“Like the time the guy complained about his Internet connection and I found the modem cable connected to thin air, under his bed?“
“Yep.”
“Or the guy who wanted to know how to stick a thumbdrive into an iPad?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Or the guy who suggested fixing a component that had broken off a circuit board with Super Glue?”
“Exactamundo.”
“And you’ll pay me for it?”
“Nope. People pay to be published by us, hello?!?”
“That doesn’t sound like a great idea to me.”
“Hell, you called me. And drove me to this dive. And are paying for the lousy sandwich I’m about to eat. And you’re expecting me to take a chance on an old, washed-up, beat-up bloke like you. Give me a break, huh?”
The unfairly maligned sandwich arrived then, and I cogitated as she delicately consumed it.
“You could write about Apple.”
Shelley resumed consumption of her sandwich.
Ah, Apple. If Apple the company was human, it would be like Bar Refaeli. Impossible perfection, like something that came from another universe.
One with better designers.
But as incredibly superlative she may be, like all humans, she has a large intestine. Reposing in said large intestine is a colony of bacteria, which have many important functions, but you don’t normally see articles about them.
Continuing the analogy, I was one of the bacterium in that large intestine. But I wasn’t there anymore. So why should I care?
“People like to read about Apple. Especially dirt. It’s a human thing.”
Transmissions from planet Shelley were once again put on hold as the sandwich took centre stage.
“So you want me to write about the juicy stuff, and you’re going to put it up, and make a ton of money, and you want me to do it for free.”
Shelley rolled her eyes.
“There’s just so many things wrong with that statement that I’m not even going to bother responding to it. Do you want the gig or not? I even thought of a name for your article. The Worm in the Apple. That’s because a worm needs a hole to live in, and that makes it a hole in the apple. An apple hole. A-hole. Which is you.”
I look down into my glass. There was about a finger’s worth of Scotch left.
So do I want it or not? Funny thing, at one point I wanted to work for Apple so bad. So what happened? Maybe it would be good to hunt down and exorcise the ghosts in the machine.
And I could also talk about the good stuff, right? The good people.
Confession is good for the soul, after all. Even a weary, tattered, battered one like mine.
So this is it, dear Reader. The first article. Almost everything has been distorted beyond recognition in order to avoid the inevitable lawsuits. Follow along, and as reward I will spin you tale after tale of the three constants of the human condition – our stupidity, our fecundity and our fascination with technology.
Wait, that sounds like Stuff Magazine. Or perhaps not.
Me hope to love you long time.
IT BYTES BACK! Says: The article’s contributor goes by the pseudonym ‘S.Hall’ and has purposefully distorted everything beyond recognition in order to avoid the inevitable lawsuits. However, following along will be more tales that exemplify the three constants of the human condition – our stupidity, our fecundity and our fascination with technology.
