(See what I am saying?): Paper Work

January 15, 2004

Paper Work

In Tunkhannock Pennsylvania a machine runs every minute of every hour of every day. It is cranking and spinning and turning and shaking while i eat and drink and dream, while people fall out of luck and into love. While people wait for things to happen and try to catch up after they do.

It looks like a building by itself. and the building that was built around it looks like a ocean freighter that over shot the docks along the st. Lawrence and ran aground into a hillside in the appalachia mountains. there are pages and pages of maps and instructions hanging on racks like last wills and testaments and forgotten folklore for future generations of employees, should a fan ever break, or a screen tear, or a bearing burn out. And people work their whole lives in the machine, mortgaging houses, buying wedding rings and college tuition and dinners on white table cloths and oil changes and tire rotations and birthday cakes.

It runs like the ocean tide. perpetual and precise. Global economies, the gods of supply and demand and distribution and renewable resources have built this machine. Indoor plumbing has kept it running. The culmination and application of modern science pulses through its circuitry and vibrates through the stainless steel. Margins of error are calculated in micrometers, tenths of degrees Celsius, and voltage is watched like a human heartbeat, all on color computer screens that run calculations like alchemy and black magic and without respect to day or night, weekend or holiday.

"All this to wipe your ass." he said with a smile.

His voice sounded dull and distant through the earplugs. The phosphorus lights hung far above me and blanketed everything in a purple film that made his smiling lips look blue and the 14' rolls of white paper that spun off the end of the machine look pale and dead.

The machine makes toilet paper. That is all it does and it does if well. Every minute of every hour of every day. While girls put on their perfume and boys buckle their belts, and while people philosophize art and life and debate the presidential primaries, the machine runs on a hillside in Tunkhannock. And for that we should all be thankful.

Posted by Todd Roeth at January 15, 2004 11:34 AM

Comments

nobody has dared comment on the shit paper entry...it's my favorite. on the grand scale it's a very accurate metaphor...whatever we make, create, divise, conjour, or brainstorm it will all someday be covered in shit. just as the civilizations before us. from a hollistic standpoint, we're not that important. life is as cyclical as the wheels that roll on the shit paper machine. it just goes round and round utill oneday our rolls too full and moved on down the line and a new roll is started.
from my point of view my shit is very important. i'm just lucky i found shit i like and am good at. i have friends i do shit with and they do shit with me. i have a alot of good shit in my life, especially that little shit i sleep with everynight. As far as my roll is concerned...i hope it's long because i have a lot of shit yet to do.

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