"When we get to Canada . . ."

My dad is on the phone with the government.

"All agents are currently assisting other callers. Please hold and your call will be answered in the order that it was received. You may also visit our website at www.dmv.ri.gov for more information. Thank you."

It's on speaker phone, and my entire family is steadily becoming more tense. Why is repetition so annoying? No one can concentrate with her voice on its loop broadcasting through the house. Why? Why are we so irritated by a few simple sentences, said again and again and again?

I'm thinking of what a professional flair the recording has. Impressive, considering it's the government we're taking about here. It sounds "just so" and nondescript. How can something so vanilla be so irksome?

And maybe it's just because I've been reading One Flew Over the Cucoo's Nest, and I've been viewing all that is efficient and institutionalized and stream-lined as soul-less and bizarre and insidious, but I'm wondering how I knew it was a recording, how, for all I know, there might be a women whose sole job is to repeat the same clinical message to every person unfortunate enough to call the Department of Motor Vehicles, just to repeat it over and over, and if she takes pride in her ability to say it the message the same exact way each time.

Not exactly a day dream with any impact, but, a more interesting thought than the other menial things I have to do today. My arm is sore from playing carpetball yesterday. I hope it feels better before the gym tomorrow.

I so love being young. The reality of the human form mostly grosses me out, but I'm trying to appreciate the reality that my joints are not worn and my skin is still elastic and and my bones are strong and my hair isn't falling out and, all that. Who can eat mostly anything and sleep hardly at all and meet very few physical limitations? People my age. Being able to see, or hear, clear as a bell, being able to sit or sleep on the floor, being able to fight off sickness and infection with relative ease -- there are plenty of benefits to youth. It almost makes up for being acne-ridden. I'm trying to stick it to the old fogey who said that youth is wasted on the young. Oh, how ironic my appreciation is!

But seriously, we feel so wise, don't we, because we've discovered so much, through watching and talking and listening and reading. It all seems so new to us and we don't realize that context is everything. Time will give us context and rob us of our bright-eyed satisfaction. Context must be wonderful, must make us truly wise, but we won't get that feeling back of everything being new and existing independently of so much other knowledge. Am I saying what I mean? I mean, we won't see things the same way. Because we won't be young. I'm trying to remember and cherish the way I see things now, because I know I'll see the same things differently later.

I hate work. I love work. Such is life. Back to work.