Originally Posted: 2005-02-02 10:26 (no longer live)
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3:00 is the Infinite Hour. It Must Die!

Three o'clock is the worst hour of the workday. Think about it:

9: Coming into the office, I'm jazzed. I log in, check my email, read the news, check a bunch of blogs where people who aren't as smart as I think I am rant on and on about how Bush stole Ohio and Social Security is going to cause everyone to die at fifty and think that anyone actually cares about Dean v. Rosenberg.

10: Coffee! Go out, walk down the street, get a cup, and by the time I get back, it's almost 11, which means...

11: Plan for lunch! Get out the menus I've got in my desk and fantasize about the food I can have at the many reasonably priced, easily-walkable lunch establishments in downtown San Francisco! After a bit of that, I'm ready for

12: Lunch "hour." An "hour" gives you fifteen minutes of leeway on either side. The Lunch Choice Of The Day will probably involve Moo Goo Gai Pan or a 2/3 LB Monster Bacon Butter Cheese Human Lard Plus Thickburger, Topped With Whipped Cream and Deep Fried or (if I'm really unlucky), Subway sandwiches that suck so much even that alien cyborg Jared Fogle couldn't eat them and lost weight. I go to Subway; it's close.

1: Still at lunch "hour." Done with eating, spending time at the table at Subway watching all of the really hot advertising chicks who would only talk to me if I threatened their mothers with a garrotte, and only then if they'd get a new handbag out of the deal.

1:20: Back to the office, time to check on the news in case anything happened in the late morning (Hey, Rudy T is quitting the Lakers!). Then it's food coma. Sit at my desk clicking the mouse every few seconds to shift between programs, trying to make the windows somehow make a pattern as interesting as the screen saver I used to get stoned to back in college when I were supposed to be doing term papers. All that education is getting a workout now!

2: Still food coma. It's about now that I should probably get some actual "work" done. Nothing like some cover sheet composition and printer paper jams to pass the time.

2:30: Ah, a post-lunch dump with a couple of printouts from ESPN.com. Bliss.

2:45 Oh no.

2:50 Christ, no.

2:55: It's almost here, shit. Finally, I get off the toilet just in time for...

3:00 THE INFINITE HOUR. Time grinds to a halt. It's too early to think about leaving, the food is gone from your stomach, you can't leave for a coffee break because you spent so much time on the can earlier and someone would notice.

3:05: Are you kidding? Frantically scan the best-of-craigslist for something entertaining, only to find that Craig only updates the damned thing every few weeks.

3:09: Homestar Runner hasn't updated either, Shit.

3:10:25 Check email. The send/receive button seems to be broken.

3:15-3:20 Fantasize about what the world would be like if 3:00 could just be skipped.

3:20:38: Check email. Apparently my penis is too small, and these guys want to help!

3:25: Start revenge fantasies. If 3:00 were a person. Shit, it *is* a person. 3:00 is that little pimply-faced fuck who *everybody* hated in elementary school; not because he was a nerd (the nerds kicked him out), but because he was a little bastard. That fuckhead tattled on everyone, made fun of the geeks for their subpar transformers collection, insulted the big guys for having too much earwax, tried to make girls touch his private regions during square dancing, and (to top it off), sucked at kickball. He'd be standing there insulting everyone while teams were chosen, and both captains would look at 3:00 for five long minutes and eventually embark on a best-of-11 rock-paper-scissors match to see who would have to take the little fucker. Then he'd kick into double plays, drop the bouncy red balls, pick his nose and wipe it on other people, and once he even pooed his pants. At age ten! What an ass.

3:30: That rant only lasted five minutes? 3:00 must die.

3:32:41 Check email. Nothing.

3:35: Think about ambushing 3:00 before the work day tomorrow and kicking the shit out of it. I can see the headline in the Chronicle: "Anthropomorphized time period assaulted. Suspect busted out of the pen by cheering crowd of cubicle slaves."

3:38:12: Write email, realize I have nothing to say. I swear, hit send/receive, and watch the blue Outlook bar cross the screen.

3:38:18: Hey, that was fun! I do that five more times.

3:40: Drank three straight cups of water--going back and forth to the cooler is fun!

3:45: Watching the clock on my desktop. Resetting it to atomic time over and over doesn't make it go any faster.

3:48:19: Check email. I qualify for a home loan! Even though my name is misspelled!

3:50: Cutting fingernails down to the quick and using the clippings to write things into my arm. I end up with marks that make me look like a heroin addict who can't get his shit together.

3:52: Oh, dear God, end this hell now. Somebody post a funny blog entry or let a natural disaster strike somewhere or let George Bush say something stupid or anything at all. I hate my computer and I hate my co-workers and if that stupid fuck from Siebel calls again to help me maximize my sales potential I will hunt down his children and turn them into a poorly done, first-try-is-just-for practice taxidermy project.

3:53:01: Check email. That's it, I'm hiring mercenaries, invading Nigeria, and stringing every banker in the place together by the balls, coating them in honey, and dropping them naked into a polar bear refuge in Siberia.

3:53:09: Check email. Nothing. I hate all of my friends.

3:54: The phone rings. It's the guy from Siebel, wanting to "follow up" on a couple of "action items." I'll "action" his "items" right back up his smirking, job-security-having ass, until he has to sit backward to attempt to impregnate his wife. I won't even try to explain that one. Figure it out.

3:56: I'm a puddle. I resolve to get hit by a car every day at 2:57 to avoid the 3:00 hour.

3:56:01.8: Check email. My dick just gets smaller, apparently.

3:57: I don't even bother praying to God any more. It's obvious He hates me, and invented the human race for his sick sport. Otherwise He would have made the day 23 hours, instead of 24. I pray to Satan instead, offering to become a serial killer and harvest souls for His Dark Majesty if He'll only make the next three minutes go by at any semblance of normal speed.

3:58: Satan doesn't answer. That cheap fuck.

3:59: Attempt to pass out. Fail.

3:59:21: Check email. Nothing

3:59:29: Check email. Nothing

3:59:31: Open up the clock icon in Windows and watch the second hand go by. I swear the programmers made it like those clocks in elementary school that tick *back* before they tick forward. I hate Microsoft. They'd be the first souls I'd harvest for Satan if the Prince of Darkness wasn't such a cheap fuck.

4:00: I slump to my desk, exhausted, wrung out from the weeklong hour that just passed. In celebration, coffee!

4:15: The guy at the coffee place has huge dark circles under his eyes. I wonder what the Infinite Hour did to him?

4:30: Ah, coffee buzz. Peeing all the time because of all the water I drank earlier.

5:00: What? What happened? I've got a few things to do before...

5:30: Quitting time! Off to MUNI and then home. 22 hours until the next Infinite Hour.


this is in or around Downtown

post id: 58115777