A Day in the Life of a Light Box Addict.

Jim awakes at 7:30 to the sound of some generic pop song. He sets the alarm on his Light Box the night before but he never bothers picking anything good; the worse the sound is the quicker he'll get out of bed to turn it off. After rubbing his eyes and stretching he switches on his Light Box; he wants to know what's going on in the world. He sits there for a few minutes staring blankly at the screen, not really taking much information in, and eventually he decides to get some breakfast so he leaves the room and makes some cereal and a Coffee. Coming back into the room he notices that his Light Box is vibrating. He picks it up, stares at it, pushes some buttons and puts it down again. That was work; they want him in early today to compensate for the lack of work his team got done yesterday. They'd all been to a party the night before and no-one in their right mind was going to do much after a night like [i]that[/i]. He smiles to himself as he remembers all the things he did that night and how he was very lucky certain other people were too drunk to remember him doing them, namely his boss. They only wanted him in half an hour early so he still had plenty of time. Half-dressed Jim sits on the end of the bed, staring at the Light Box. He's more awake by now and he can absorb most of the information presented to him through news bulletins and Children's shows. Nothing is paid more attention to however, than an advert for the very cereal he's holding in his hands; too busy being transfixed by this large plastic Box in the corner of the room, he'd forgotten about his needy stomach almost completely. He watches intently, and feels glad that he is (or would be if he actually started eating this morning) getting one of his five-a-day, a third of his daily fibre intake, lowering his Cholesterol and lowering his chance of cancer, all with the munching of some soggy chunks of cardboard. Suddenly he realises he's been sitting there for quite a while and looking at the clock he almost shits himself; he's late... again. Shoving on the rest of his clothes and leaving the untouched cereal by the bed, Jim rushes out the house and stumbles into his car. He pushes the speed limit as much as he dares, but even that was useless at this time in the morning simply due to the amount of traffic. As a result he's almost exactly half an hour late. He'd have to use the excuse that he didn't get the message until he got in his car; he hopes that'll work. It doesn't. So Jim sits there in his chair, Coffee on hand, staring at the Light Box in front of him. That's his job. Oh, well, occasionally he pushes a few buttons, clicks some switches and collects some printouts, but that's about the extent of it. He stares and he stares and he stares and he plugs and he types and he clicks and he prints and then he goes back to staring. All of a sudden it's lunchtime so he gets up from his chair and follows the others into the cafeteria. He gets a tray and while the podgy, rather spiteful woman behind the counter slops what she calls "Sausage n Mash" onto a plate he stares vacantly at the Light Box on the wall. Not noticing the woman has finished loading his plate up he receives a cold jab in the neck from her ladle; he quickly apologises and moves on to an empty table. He's still staring at the Light Box 20 minutes later when he's finished his slop and is returning the plate to the correct box. Back at his desk he has a fresh mug of Coffee at the ready and a big stack of papers; an afternoon of number-crunching... *sigh* fantastic. He stares at the Light Box for a much longer period than normal, plugging faster than normal and printing more than usual, as he wants to get this stack finished today. At 6 O'clock he finally sends the last document in the stack and shuts down his Light Box. He Packs his bag, swipes out of the building and drives down the motorway towards home. SHIT! When he left the house this morning he hadn't turned the Light Box off. Oh well so long as the house hasn't burned down it'll be fine. Luckily for Jim the house hasn't burnt down, and 15 minutes later he's sitting comfortably in front of the 50 inch black box that dominates the bedroom so, with a microwave dinner and a can of Special Brew. He'd thrown the cereal away from earlier as the milk had gone off, but he promised himself that he [i]would [/i]finish an entire bowl tomorrow morning. His favourite show's just started so his concentration is fixed yet he also feels strangely relaxed as the alcohol winds its way through his system. 'Nice to finally get away from the office' he thinks; 'Nice to do something different for a change'.