Out, out damn'd CD!

In this age of digital music and instant downloads actual physical CD's are quickly becoming obsolete.  And not a moment too soon.  While I may find this post dating in the near future, for now I still feel comfortable asking you all to cast your mind back upon the last time you purchased an album.  Mine was "Muddy 'Mississippi' Waters Live" (I think).  It was an impulse buy from the oh-so-strategically positioned display rack right next to the register at Borders.
As a side note, whoever came up with the idea of those racks deserves his own personal hell where he gets to spend eternity trying to get children between the ages of 3 and 10 past one without a melt down.

But that is for another post...to get back on topic, are you thinking of  your last CD?  

Good.  Now, I know this is going to be painful, but try and think back about getting it open...

...You're remembering now, aren't you?  That shrink-wrapped plastic skin, enveloping all that music-y goodness in a perfect wall of impenetrability.  What did you try?  A knife?

Scissors?

A chainsaw?

Perhaps these?

Or these?

Eventually, after much swearing and frustration, you finally got it open.  By then, of course, you had lost any desire you ever had to actually listen to the CD...

But now...imagine this.  This is you:

You're alone in a room.  Nothing else there.  You have no teeth, no fingernails.  And a massive pile of brand new CDs that need to be opened.  

You have made it to the third circle of Hell...

                                                              

Oh no...

Just another day.  Running errands, stopping around town, dropping things off, picking them up.  Last stop is the grocery store.  Strolling through the aisles, discovering products you never even thought about wanting (Omega 3,6,9 oil from avocado pits--no fish oil!), you slowly fill your basket with the necessary items (smoked gouda, mini ice cream sandwiches, and eggs) and a few unnecessary ones (the banana-paper notebook with owls on the front, and a cheap movie).  Eventually you have made your way through the entire store, collected every needful thing, and it is time to pay for you merchandise.


Life seems to be favoring you today.  As you approach the registers you see a total of four cashiers standing idly, waiting for something to do.  Steering toward the friendliest looking of the four, you begin to unload your cart onto the black rubber belt.  You make friendly chit-chat with your chosen cashier (who is wearing a name tag that reads "The Beard"), joking about the wide variety you have collected.  You are content.  

At last The Beard announces your total.  You reach into your purse and pull out the thing that also holds your most commonly used cards (library, driver's license, bank, Cafe Rio) and look in the designated pocket.  All you see is an Albertson's Club Card.  


Somehow, in the exact instant that you see that blue and white insignia, your heart stops dead.  A cold dread floods through your entire body.  Attempting to stifle panic before it is warranted, you hastily glance at all the other pockets where perhaps a misguided shove had placed the card by mistake.  Nothing.  Horror is rising steadily within you, overwhelming all barriers like the floodwaters of New Orleans.  Frantically you begin to ransack every pocket, fold, and crevice on your person.  Patting yourself down like some sort of schizophrenic policeman, you realize that it simply is not there.


The Beard waits patiently, having witnessed this ritual dance before.  Finally, you look up into his eyes, your own wide and deranged.  Calmly, he asks "Can't you find your card?  Would you like me to suspend your transaction while you go and check in your car?"  How can he be calm at a time like this?  Doesn't he understand that somewhere someone is--at this very moment--buying a vespa, an x-box, a refrigerator, a bounce house and dance shoes with that card?  Doesn't he understand that your carefully cultivated credit score, nurtured lovingly like a child, is being raped and pillaged by some unscrupulous miscreant who managed to stumble upon your card--forgotten and left behind on one of your many stops this day?  How dare he act so calm?!


To varying degrees this is a scenario we have all experienced.  Perhaps you go out to your car and find the card laying innocently on your passenger seat.  Perhaps you find it hiding between the pages of your planner.  Or perhaps you simply go home, cancel it, and order a new one.  Regardless of the outcome, those few minutes standing there dumbly at the cash register take years off a person's life.  What if it wasn't a once in a while occurrence?  What if that was how you were to spend the rest of your life?  The rest of forever?  What if you were condemned to spend eternity repeating those brief moments at the cash register when you realize that your life might be in the hands of someone else?


Welcome to the second circle of Hell...

The Line

Allow me to sketch a quick vignette for you.  Behold the burgeoning Domestic Goddess.  She wakes up bright and early one Saturday morning with a glorious sense of empowerment and energy.  She doesn't just feel like she can do anything, but that she actually wants to.  That's right, today is the day that she is going to clean her apartment even though cleaning checks aren't for another two weeks!  She is no longer simply a Domestic Goddess, but the Domestic Destroying Angel!

She dives into the those dishes with a resolve that could conquer Everest; a good thing, considering the striking resemblance between the two.  After the dishes, she attacks the counters, sweeping a pastiche of crumbs, rice, and vegetable peels onto the floor--which comes next.  And this is the climax of our story.  She calls forth her broom--her Flaming Sword of Justice.  She sweeps with vengeance and authority, wreaking havoc on the floor at her feet.  At last, there it all is, like a pile of corpses in a concentration camp.  Now to dispose of it completely.

Here is her Dustpan of Doom in one hand, and Broom of Justice in the other.  The Domestic Destroying Angel pauses a moment to exult over her imminent victory.  Then, uttering a gleeful cackle, she descends and with a swift sure gesture, sweeps her victims to their doom.  But what is this?!  Cackle choked, half-uttered, she stoops down in apparent confusion.  Yes, in her Dustpan of Doom is huddled the majority of her prey.  But there!  Can it be that at the Mouth of Hell some have escaped?!  She chuckles at her own impetuosity, which must have made her too hasty or complacent in her first pass.  Again she attacks, this time with a deliberate movement.  She rises up in triumph, only to fall back to her knees in horror!  There!  Yes, just there!  It is still there!  In this moment the first traces of fear flit across her face.

Let us now fast-forward just a few minutes. Where is that avenging angel of a Domestic Goddess now?  What?  It surely couldn't be the pathetic creature we see here?!  Not this sorry, gibbering woman who frantically sweeps, and sweeps again this same patch of floor over and over and over again.  If you drag her away, do you know what you will find?  That same line of dust at the lip of the dustpan, eternal and indefatigable--defying all-comers to get it into the pan.

Nothing will convince you of the futility of life more effectively than that indomitable line.  In real life, it's true, you don't generally end up in a corner mumbling.  If you're smart, you don't waste a moment.  As soon as you hit that line, you remove your Dustpan of Doom and flip that dust right where it belongs--under the fridge!

But now imagine that you can't do that.  Some way, some how, you are no longer allowed to let go of that dust.  You must sweep it into that pan, no exceptions, no short-cuts.

That, my friends, is Hell...