Got a new job with the largest shipping company in the world -- one with an acronymic name no less. I love acronyms. It was my primary reason for submitting an application. Well, that and my increasing inability to cover debt. Practical concerns have a way of imposing themselves that way.


I'm moving up in the world, though. Into my very own pod -- truthfully, a shared pod -- in a giant pod-farm with the rest of my demographic. The pay is decent, however, and the benefits seem oddly great.


Boring, yes.

But excitement breeds heartattacks, and I'm already doing more than my fair share for the cause with trans-fat laden frozen foods, heavily salted, deep-fried slices and chunks of former vegetables, and "grilled" matter passed through sliding windows by surly adolescents and embittered boomers who received mere sloppy seconds at the generational orgy.

And now that I'll be extending my domestic role of computer-transfixed slug to the workplace, it's only going to get better.

Hardening of the arteries, hypertension... maybe my very own goiter.

For company, you know.