Microserfs

"Can't those two just code?" moaned Michael in a rare show of feeling. So now the Gang of Two (Boris and Natasha no more) are onto their next political kick.

* * *

Abe:

Went into Microsoft. Spent most of the morning entering my old vynyl records into a database Iv'e built. Filemaker Prod by Claris gets to Track my CHS tape collection . .

Questions: Can you gusess what this is by the ingeredients?

SD Alcohol

Water

Tween 20

Glycerine

Flavor

Sodium Sacchharine

FD&C Blue No 1

"Made in USA"

Keep guessing. I'll give you the answer later. [Answer: ice

Drops icy-mint breath freshener.]

* * *

Dusty was telling us later on all of this cool body stuff: about an aerobic drug, RPO, that enhances the body's ability to metabolize oxygen. Rumor has it a French bicycling team all died of heart attacks using it. And she discussed how too many steroids make women grow hair and can make users "acromegliac" - their craniums distort.

Oh - Dusty barfed up whole Lake Superiors of muck all morning. I wonder what's up with that.

Some new diet regime, doubtless.

* * *

Ethan says Type-A personalities have a whole subset of diseases that they, and only they, share, and the transmission vector for these diseases is the door close button on elevators that only get pushed by impatient, Type-A people. Ethan pushes these buttons with his elbow, now. I'm starting lo worry about all of us.

I

n the spirit of Ethan's neurosis, we made a dry wall list of keyboard bill tons we would like to see:

PLEASE

THANK YOU

FUCK OFF

DIE

OOPS . . . MY MISTAKE

DO SOMETHING COOL AND SURPRISE ME

* * *

Later, everyone got in a debate over whether or not Fisher Price's minifigs were cooler than Lego's. The debate went onto the drywall:

FISHER PRICE minifigs versus LEGO minifigs

Fisher Price Minifigs:

Plus: limbless figures give children a feeling of helplessness

Minus: faces resemble those of beloved but unfunny cartoon characters in Family Circus

Plus: generic, Gap-like outfits

Minus: height/weight-disproportionate bodies imply eating disorders: bad role model for millennial youth yearning to be functional

Lego Minifigs:

Plus: interchangeable, unisex hairdos

Minus: clawlike hands are scary and potentially traumatizing

Plus: bodies can be incorporated into architecture

Minus: bad fashions

* * *

Dad hates his boss, "the 32-year-old prick." "He's a humorless Total Quality Management freak who uses Anthony Robbins pep talks to motivate me into learning humiliatingly simple input codes. Hell, I'm younger than him in everything but body."

Dad's only one-third the way up the food chain in his division at Delta, and it must be really degrading for him. Mom said, "I know your father wanted a job badly, but maybe this isn't his cup of tea. Can't you people teach him C++ a bit faster?" We had to tell her that learning doesn't scale. But the idea of Dad being a hip and with-it coder is one that appeals to all of us in the office. Who knows where this will lead.

FRIDAY

(one week later)

Dad quit his job. He showed up at the office around two in the afternoon to tell me. Michael promptly gave him some C++ manuals and put him in an empty chair in the corner and said, "Time to learn for real, Mr. Underhill."

Mom was P-I-S-S-E-D off. But even still, she knew the Delta thing was going nowhere. She figures Dad's just caught in this weird demographic glitch: too young to retire; too old to learn new tricks. She figures Dad's around for the long haul, so she told Dad two new rules she's made up for day-to-day living:

1) I'm never making you lunch.

2) You're never allowed to come shopping with me.

Other changes: the Gang of Two traipsed in this morning. "We have ceased being Maoists. We are now ideologically basing ourselves on Product Theory."

Being numb from all of their flip-flop - and from extreme politics in general - once again nobody bothered to look up. "Gee kids, that's nice. See Star Trek last night?"

Todd added, "The modern economy isn't about the redistribution of wealth - it's about the redistribution of time."

His eyeballs were rolling inside his head with pleasure. "Instead of battling to control rubber boot factories, the modern post-Maoist wants to battle for your 45 minutes of daily discretionary time. The consumer electronics industry is all about lassoing your time, not your money - that time-greedy ego-part of the brain that wants to maximize a year's worth of year."

"But that," I said, "is exactly what Ethan believes."

Silence.

Ethan shot me a self-satisfied glance, and the ex-Gang of Two went to work without much ado.

"Really," said Michael, "I hope this here is the end of politics."

* * *

Karla said to me later on, "Did you know that Michael spends one hour a day on e-mail talking to someone named BarCode who lives in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada? Has he ever mentioned this to you?"

"Michael discussed his interior life?"