...telecommutings dark underbelly, as related in either the first or second person by one currently intermeshed in same.

...Honor can be bought. I know because I am buying it all time. I bought $278.00 worth this week alone. In our family there resides a blue 1988 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon with the simulated wood grain sides and automatic transmission. We love this car because it is so long that since we acquired it we started getting home five minutes earlier. But, alas, salt is in the air and time and hard use are voracious adversaries for the metallic substructure that makes up this noble aging gas hog. Moot points aside, the gas tank developed a leak, near the top, not a lot of spillage, but not repairable, either. Twelve year-old car...gas tank...how much? HA!, not even close! The previously quoted figure finishes off this sad tale. We're talking a cheap metal box that holds liquid. Half of this cost was labor...$60 an hour. That works out to $125,000 a year for somebody. Where is the honor here? I think deep down inside this is why I so enjoy telecommuting, you don't have to drive too far.

...This concept, that smells an awful lot like greed, is just the tip of the iceberg. Extrapolated nationally, it gets worse. Inexpensive Electric razor - $54, replacement heads $30. Flashlight - $1, batteries $2.79. There is a plethora of similar disparities. If you are in business, you can see where I am going with this. It was only meant as a philosophical construct. Do with it what you will. Be honorable and fair in you business dealings is all that I am asking, especially with me.

...This brings us to point number two. You're sitting in a movie theater (which, dishonorably on the part of theater chains everywhere, cost you $7.50 to get into and gawd forbid you should get a popcorn or break the law and try to sneak some in the sleeve of your sweatshirt held casually over your left arm), watching a movie about a young man from a poor background who is struggling up life's arduous ladder and having a hard time and facing insurmountable problems of one sort or another. Well, just where did he get that 2000 red Camaro convertible and the leather jacket and still be able to swing the great apartment in a major city where he hasn't even gotten an honest job yet. Life situations like this do not happen to telecommuters. Maybe it's because I get stuck up on the small things like where am I going to come up with the $7.50 to go see this movie that is going to make me feel bad about not having the material dross, like the character in movie, that would make my life so exiting. Not only that, but this schmucko is going to drive his Camaro real fast and knock some innocent bystander off the road on his way to some derring-doo nirvana without so much as a moving violation from the local authorities. The real movie might focus on how the poor guy or gal who got plowed into the cornfield during our protagonist's chase scene manages to overcome the adversities and trauma of the accident and somehow pull their life back together and maybe be able to afford a used car of some sort, albeit with a leaky gas tank, and finish their degree in night school and open a drug store that overcharges the elderly for drugs they need to survive and sells cameras for $19 and film for $8. Their has to be a reality somewhere in this 21st century circle of life.

...Harrison Ford's character in "Blade Runner", it turns out, was a replicant. I never knew that and have seen the flic multifariously since it's incep-date. I wonder how much entertainment costs in the future in which this story is set. There seemed to be an abundance of poverty evident, and beaucoup Coke ads strewn conspicuously all over the glum, futuristic, semi post-apocalyptic landscape. This movie also got me thinking about the 55 gallon drum. So humble, the 55 gallon drum, but oh so prolific and symbolic. I could do a thesis of the use of 55 gallon drums in cinema, except, I don't do theses. There was one of these drums that had a bit part in "Rocky" and another in "Repo Man" for example. We can all probably bring one to mind Anywhere where the huddling masses need an impromptu fire in times of desperation. I should get one before I need it so that I will be ready for the imminent economic collapse brought about by flagrant overcharging.

...In parting, I have to share a vignette that deals just outside the realm of telecommuting, but has to be shared with the global community at large. Upon entering and leaving the fair state I live in, which shall go unnamed, one is accosted by a sign which reads: "If your business were in 'This State' you'd be home now." Did anyone pick up on the faulty logic? I never did. My wife saw it instantly. She confided in me that it SHOULD read: "If you business were in "This State" you'd be at WORK now!" Anyway I have numerously written the bureaucrats about this minor point, but alas, they must all be at home now.