Saturday, February 04, 2006
A couple of weeks ago, I spent the day at a temp assignment making copies and praying to the Almighty for a swift and painless death. Or a slow and painful death. Either would have been fine. God, in his strange and incomprehensible wisdom, didn't see fit to grant my simple request, but he did reward me for my hubris ("You'll die when I'm damn well good and ready to kill you") by guiding my hand and helping me spill toner all over the copier.
Which broke the machine for most of the rest of the day. So I guess there was some justice.
At the time though, an idea hit me. I'm not really sure what the source of urban legends are, but I think I've got a good idea for a new one. If you've never seen copier toner, it is a dark, fine powder that, and trust me when I say this, gets into and onto everything. It looks very much like coal dust and that's from where this particular inspiration came. I think a good urban legend would be that people who are employed in jobs that require heavy copier use suffer higher incidences of black lung and other breathing conditions than miners. It can join the others job stories out there, such as flight attendants and pilots have higher cancer rates due to exposure to cosmic radiation (possibly true) and science fiction writers frequently keeling over, exhausted from the sexual demands of their attractive female readers (unfortunately, tragically, untrue).
That's the rumor. Spread it whenever you get a chance and if anyone asks you about your sources, start coughing uncontrollably until they get embarrassed and stop asking stupid questions. If you could cause some black dust to come out during the fit, so much the better.
New word of the day: estoppel. An estoppel prevents someone from denying the truth of a particular fact. You can find examples if you click on the link. My favorite part of the word is contained at the bottom of the linked definition. There, it says that not only is estoppel, is it just means "stop", but that "does not appear to originate in any known language. Our research indicates it started either as a legal fraternity's drunken prank or was the result of an unknown Judge's severe speech impediment. "
Which broke the machine for most of the rest of the day. So I guess there was some justice.
At the time though, an idea hit me. I'm not really sure what the source of urban legends are, but I think I've got a good idea for a new one. If you've never seen copier toner, it is a dark, fine powder that, and trust me when I say this, gets into and onto everything. It looks very much like coal dust and that's from where this particular inspiration came. I think a good urban legend would be that people who are employed in jobs that require heavy copier use suffer higher incidences of black lung and other breathing conditions than miners. It can join the others job stories out there, such as flight attendants and pilots have higher cancer rates due to exposure to cosmic radiation (possibly true) and science fiction writers frequently keeling over, exhausted from the sexual demands of their attractive female readers (unfortunately, tragically, untrue).
That's the rumor. Spread it whenever you get a chance and if anyone asks you about your sources, start coughing uncontrollably until they get embarrassed and stop asking stupid questions. If you could cause some black dust to come out during the fit, so much the better.
New word of the day: estoppel. An estoppel prevents someone from denying the truth of a particular fact. You can find examples if you click on the link. My favorite part of the word is contained at the bottom of the linked definition. There, it says that not only is estoppel, is it just means "stop", but that "does not appear to originate in any known language. Our research indicates it started either as a legal fraternity's drunken prank or was the result of an unknown Judge's severe speech impediment. "
// posted by Dan @ 1:17 PM 
