The Internet is a Playground Read online

  From: Shannon Walkley

  Date: Wednesday 7 April 2010 9:02 a.m.

  To: David Thorne

  Subject: Tuesday

  Hi. Where where you yesterday? Thomas tried ringing you.

  From: David Thorne

  Date: Wednesday 7 April 2010 10:47 a.m.

  To: Shannon Walkley

  Subject: Re: Tuesday

  Dear Shannon,

  I woke up late Tuesday morning. As a meeting had been planned for 9 a.m. with an angry client expecting a completed logo design four days earlier, I realized the tune playing on my phone was not the alarm but the fourth call from Thomas. Although fully intending to do the logo, I had somehow instead spent the previous week on a knitting forum, under the guise of “Edna,” a seventy-eight-year-old woman with fourteen grandchildren, making friends and exchanging tips before declaring that I could “hear someone breaking in downstairs,” then logging off forever, giving them something more interesting to discuss than fractional stitches and menopause.

  Not caring as much as I probably should, due to working in an industry devoid of conscience, I constructed a vaguely believable excuse for being late in my head as I made a coffee, lit a cigarette, and turned on the shower. Because of the age of the building, it usually takes around five minutes for the water to heat, and I spent this time staring at the shower curtain, which features the periodic table, wondering why I had never heard of Seaborgium (106).

  As I entered the shower and was soaking and lathering my hair with shampoo, my phone rang for the fifth time. As I reached out of the shower to answer it, I slipped, fell, and slammed my face, mouth first, into the sink, knocking out two teeth and cracking another. Through the pain, which was exactly like having my teeth knocked out with a porcelain sink, I stemmed the blood with a Mr. Men T-shirt shoved into my mouth while searching for a dentist online.

  Confirming an emergency dentist appointment, I discovered the clothes I had laid out, along with half the apartment, were spattered with blood and my only other options were wet in the washing machine from the night before. Figuring I would turn the car heater on high during the drive, I pulled on wet trousers and a shirt, grabbed my phone, and locked the door behind me before realizing my keys were inside.

  Kicking in a door is not as simple as action movies make it out to be, and my first attempt resulted in what felt like a sprained ankle. Hobbling to a side window, almost blind with pain and frustration, I picked up a potted aloe vera plant and threw it through the glass. Climbing into the apartment, now covered in blood and soil, I collected my keys and left.

  After driving several blocks, I realized the dentist’s address and phone number, written on my refrigerator door with a whiteboard marker, should have been reproduced onto a more transportable medium. Turning back, I arrived at the apartment to find two police officers at the premises responding to a report from a concerned neighbor about a possible break-in. Having established my identity and explained the smashed window, sprained ankle, wet clothing, missing teeth, and the blood and soil throughout the apartment, one of the officers stated, “You should probably go see a dentist.”

  I am not sure if it was my response to this statement or if they were just sticklers for the rules, but it was at this point I was issued a $235 fine for the four-inch potted marijuana seedling on my windowsill that I had received as a housewarming gift, despite pretending that I thought it was basil. As they left, one of them told me to “Have a nice day.”

  Taking a photo with my phone of the refrigerator door, I left the apartment. Halfway there, while on the phone to the dental surgery department, letting them know I was on my way, I heard a siren and looked in the rearview mirror to see a police vehicle with lights flashing. Pulling over and explaining why I was wet, limping, and had a Mr. Men T-shirt covered in blood held up to my face, I was issued a $218 fine for using a mobile phone while driving. The officer also pointed out that my vehicle was unregistered and had been so for fifteen days. Charged with such, I was informed that the vehicle would have to stay parked on the side of the road until I had paid the registration fees. As the vehicle registration office was only eight blocks from where my car was parked, I decided that walking there, despite my sprained ankle and gathering dark clouds, would be quicker than waiting for a taxi.

  Arriving at the vehicle registration office almost an hour later, forced to rest several times, I joined a queue of approximately fifty people pretending not to notice the wet, limping, bleeding person with missing teeth. Calling the dentist to change my appointment to a later time, I caught a reflected glimpse of myself in a window. Due to the pain and loss of blood, my face was completely white, while the exertion of walking to the registration office had caused my mouth to bleed openly. I looked like a vampire. Not like the good looking one from Twilight, though—a limping, pissed off one. I realized I also still had shampoo in my hair. After what seemed like an hour of waiting in line, and was, I reached the counter and explained my situation to a lady so large her name tag was enveloped by a fold. Several minutes of one-finger typing later, possibly due to only one finger at a time fitting on the keyboard, she informed me that due to unpaid parking fines, I would not be able to register the vehicle until I had been to the courthouse and settled the $472.80 outstanding amount. Leaving the motor registration office, I had to duck and run from a bee.

  While sitting in the taxi on the way to the courthouse, the bee, which I was sure I had eluded but must have been on my shirt, stung me on the inside of my left arm.

  Arriving, I entered the building and joined the queue of approximately seventy other people there to pay fines. Surprisingly, I was not the only person there with missing teeth and blood on my face, and he gave me a knowing nod in what I assume was understanding or camaraderie. I felt like saying, “No, you have no fucking idea,” but I simply nodded back, as he looked like the kind of person who might have a knife. Underestimating the waiting time, I called the dentist and changed the appointment again. After an hour of watching the area on my left arm where I had been stung grow to the size of a grapefruit and listening to the person in front of me yell at his girlfriend over the phone for kissing someone named Trevor, I reached the counter, paid the fines, and rang for a taxi to take me back to the motor registration office.

  While I was waiting, an elderly man wearing a Salvation Army uniform asked me if I was all right and needed a place to stay, which I suppose was nice, but I was not in the mood for his crap at that moment and informed him of such.

  Impatient after thirty minutes and no sign of the taxi, a bus pulled up, and I made a split decision to catch it. As I boarded the packed vehicle, I overheard a man tell his offspring not to stare. Explaining to the driver that not having caught a bus in thirty years meant I could not be expected to know about the exact fare rule or their inability to accept Visa, I paid ten dollars for the ride with no change. With the bus pulling away from the curb and turning down a street in the opposite direction of where I was headed, I jumped off at the next stop. Forgetting my sprained ankle, I landed awkwardly and fell. Having seen television shows where they tell you to turn a fall into a roll, the procedure was cut short by the bus stop pole. As I was pulling myself to my feet, the bus driver stepped off the bus and gave me back the ten dollars as the other passengers watched out the windows. As I waited for another taxi, it began to rain, causing the shampoo to run into my eyes. Swearing to never buy Schwarzkopf liquid pepper spray, a.k.a. shampoo, products again, I used the blood-soaked Mr. Men T-shirt to wipe the body of foam from my eyes and forehead.

  Arriving back at the motor registration office, now with my left arm looking like Popeye’s and the top section of my face painted red, I stood patiently in line for another thirty minutes, ignoring the stares and whispers, and playing “Delete everyone I hate this week from my phone.”

  After reaching the counter, paying the vehicle registration and attempting to call a taxi but finding my phone battery now flat from its previous lengthy exercise, I wal
ked the eight blocks in the rain back to my vehicle to find a parking ticket for the amount of seventy-two dollars attached to the window and a missing side mirror, where someone driving past had hit it.

  Finding the dentist office an hour and forty five minutes past closing time, I was informed that they would still see me but an after-hours emergency charge of $165 would be additional. As the dental surgeon was seeing another patient at a different clinic, I sat reading 2003 copies of People magazine for two and a half hours before he arrived. Apparently Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are dating.

  Called in by the dentist, I asked for titanium alloy replacement teeth to enable me to chew through a porcelain sink in revenge, but neither of us thought it was very funny. Somehow during the surgery, possibly due to walking more kilometers that day than I had in the last ten years, I fell asleep while staring at a poster featuring a tube of Colgate toothpaste wearing an army uniform and shooting plaque with a machine gun. I awoke, as the dentist was finishing, with lips the size of armchair cushions but my teeth intact. As the process took more than three hours and involved an excessive number of large needles, stainless steel pins, and drilling, the invoice, including the emergency after-hours charge, came to $2,460.18 with another $58 prescription for painkillers and antibiotics.

  I arrived home to find the apartment floor covered with a centimeter-deep mixture of blood, soil, and water, thanks to the rain coming through the smashed window; and my laptop, half my DVDs, and the television missing. Wading through to my bedroom, I climbed onto the bed, plugged my phone in, and fell asleep listening to messages from Thomas asking where I was and the fat lady at the motor registration office letting me know I had left my driver’s license there.

  Regards, David

  From: Shannon Walkley

  Date: Wednesday 7 April 2010 11:18 a.m.

  To: David Thorne

  Subject: Re: Re: Tuesday

  Ok

  Hello, my name is Jason, and I own a MacBook Pro

  Hello, my name is Jason, and I’m creative. I own a MacBook Pro. Do you own a MacBook Pro? It’s OK if you don’t own a MacBook Pro, because MacBook Pro’s are for only creative people.

  Everyone agrees with me that I am the most creative person they know. My MacBook Pro allows me to express my creativity by letting everyone know that I own a MacBook Pro. People sometimes ask, “Is that a MacBook Pro?” to which I reply, “Yes, it is. Because I am creative.”

  Once, when I was hiking and became lost in the wilderness, I was attacked by bears. Luckily, I had my MacBook Pro with me, which has my face as the desktop picture. I raised the screen high above my head, effectively looking taller to the bears, and they ran away. I then used the shiny titanium case to signal a rescue plane.

  My Apple MacBook Pro

  My MacBook Pro is the 12-inch 400 MHz version. People are stupid paying so much for the Intel Macs. I bought an iBook, painted it silver and used Letraset to write “MacBook Pro” on it. It is exactly the same as a real one, and as I use only Microsoft Word, it suits all my requirements.

  Letter to Steve Jobs

  Dear Steve,

  Thank you for inventing the MacBook Pro. It is my friend and it is my lover. On the next model, could you please write the word “Pro” in bold?

  P.S.: I watched Pirates of Silicon Valley the other night and thought you were a bit mean to your girlfriend. Apart from that, you were really cool. I have a poster of you on my wall.

  Love Jason

  The best thing about having a MacBook Pro is that you can take it anywhere. Now I can have Jason time anytime:

  On the patio with a cold one.

  Over a coffee.

  Curling up in bed.

  Or just relaxing in the bath.

  Tom the sad caveman

  Write me a speech and don’t be a dickhead about it

  When I was growing up, the only thing I wanted to be was an astronaut. This may seem like a normal aspiration for many children, but I was well into my teens, late teens, before realizing my chances were less than minimal. OK, mid twenties. The high grade requirements in physics and math may have something to do with it, but I prefer to blame the lack of space shuttle availability in Australia. I would have been a terrible NASA employee, anyway, preferring to spin around in capsules and jump high rather than spending my time connecting module bolt 962-A to 962-B. As an alternative to a career requiring high academic achievement, I chose one requiring none at all. A degree in design comprises mainly of taking copious amounts of drugs, wearing Doc Martins, and talking derisively about people who do not understand the difference between Helvetica Neue and Helvetica.

  From: Thomas

  Date: Wednesday 27 January 2010 3:12 p.m.

  To: David Thorne

  Subject: Speech

  I have been asked to be part of the Speakers in Schools program this Friday and have to present a speech to the students at Bansia Park High School. It just has to be the opening speech and I will then go through the powerpoint presentation and show them examples of graphic design and branding we have done. I am very busy so can you write the opening speech? It just needs to be five minutes or so about the company and what we do. TJ

  From: David Thorne

  Date: Wednesday 27 January 2010 3:26 p.m.

  To: Thomas

  Subject: Re: Speech

  Dear Thomas,

  How does this affect your court order–imposed five-hundred-meter ban from schools?

  Regards, David

  From: Thomas

  Date: Wednesday 27 January 2010 4:02 p.m.

  To: David Thorne

  Subject: Re: Re: Speech

  Just write the opening speech please and don’t be a dickhead about it.

  From: David Thorne

  Date: Wednesday 27 January 2010 5:16 p.m.

  To: Thomas

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Speech

  Dear Thomas,

  I have attached the first draft of your opening speech. It may require a few tweaks but basically introduces you to the students and provides a clear understanding of what working in the design industry entails. Let me know of any changes you require:

  Good morning students.

  My name is Thomas, and I have driven this extraordinary distance from the nice suburbs to speak to you today despite the fact that I am not being paid to do so and it doesn’t count as part of my community service. I had the secretary check. It has been a long time since I was in a school environment, and it brings back many memories—some fond, some painful. For many years I was called cruel names because of the size of my head, and rocks were thrown at me as I crossed the schoolyard due to being an easy target.

  Thankfully, Mrs. Carter was eventually transferred to teach English at a different school, and the bullying stopped. It was obvious from the poor grade she gave me for my essay—about a space teacher who deals with racial issues when he transfers to a school on the planet Beta-5—titled “To sir, with the only emotional responses that can be generated by a species that has evolved in a methane atmosphere seventy times the pressure of Earth’s,” that her hostility masked a burning jealousy of my superior writing abilities, and I explained this to her on several occasions. A short time later, the replacement English teacher, Mr. Amorelli, asked me to stay back after class to discuss my grades but instead made me stand on a desk, undress slowly, and dance in a circular motion. At first

  I was afraid and ashamed, but then the power of dance overcame me, and I danced like I have never danced before. Like that welder in the movie Flashdance.

  And that is what graphic design and branding is about. When the client asks you to fit eighteen pages of text onto a single-sided A4 flyer and increase the type size to twelve point, simply find your special place and dance. It doesn’t matter if there is no music; create the rhythm by clapping, humming, or building a musical instrument using tightly drawn string and a cardboard box. A stick with bottle tops nailed to it does not count as a musical instrument. Nobody wants to hear that. I
usually tap out “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” by the Beastie Boys, with spoons, but it comes down to personal preference and implement availability.

  And here’s a PowerPoint presentation . . .

  From: Thomas

  Date: Thursday 28 January 2010 10:02 a.m.

  To: David Thorne

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speech

  What the fuck is this? I told you not to be a dickead about it. Just write something normal that explains design and branding to young students please. I don’t know how old they are probably 13 or 14. I have to present on Friday morning.

  From: David Thorne