Bev peered deeply into the office fridge. It was a place she loathed, but high anxiety called for brave action. She pushed various smelly open pots around the top shelf until she found the perfect thing: “Maggie Beer’s Tzatziki with pine nuts, tree leaves and tapioca”. It was absurd, pretentious stuff – and also was past its Use By date. It was perfect. She grabbed the opened tub and closed the fridge door firmly. She knew what she had to do.
Bev was aware that the expression of rage in the modern era had changed beyond recognition. In the olden days, women didn’t get angry, they merely “expressed their distaste”. Gentlemen, on the other hand, would rise at dawn, with an arrangement to meet their offending opponent. Pistols would be drawn: there was a winner and a loser. The matter was settled.
But these days, it was all about myriad digital frustrations. Delays while you waited on emails. Websites that didn’t work properly. Phone calls that didn’t get returned. Call centre operators with weak excuses like, “I’m sorry, the ‘system’ is slow today”. And of course the ubiquitous message that was meant to make sense to all humans,
“An unexpected error has occurred. Your request could not be processed.”
Bev knew it was not good enough. In her quiet, digital rebellion, she was going to make it all clear.
First, she typed a rapid email to her dizzy boss, a woman who couldn’t schedule her way out of a paper bag. “Won’t be in for the rest of the day,” Bev typed hastily. “Something has come up – cheers Bev.”
Then she tore back the remainder of the tin foil lid from Maggie’s disgusting Tzatziki-with-everything goop. Using her mouse, she brought the offending intranet page to the front of her screen. She felt a certain power knowing that its irritating, taunting words would be rendered unreadable in just moments. It had to be done with bare hands. No implements. It was part of the ritual. Human fingers against the dull resistance of intranet pages. Humans would prevail.
Taking a deep breath, she plunged her manicured fingers into the tub of Maggie’s stale dip. She took a large dollop. Then in a single deft action she applied the vile cream-and-green paste to her screen, right on top of the offending “unexpected error” message. The odour was repulsive. She repeated this action again, and then a third time, ensuring all of the grim paste was used and that the soul-less message was completely obscured by the slowly oozing mess.
As she looked at her handiwork on the screen, she felt satisfied. “Unexpected error,” was it? She’d give it ‘unexpected!’ It expected her to click OK as if to accept its absurd error like agreeing to an appalling fate. It never expected her to plaster it with stale savoury dip – and pine nuts.
And with that, Bev wiped her soiled hand roughly across the melamine desk, stood up and left the office for the day. One could only put up with so much.
