I've Been Kidnapped By MY Own Article!

This all started out so simply....

Last Wednesday I posted up an article here on Gather about how much I hate telephones. Just some personal opinions about them, nothing more. I was fortunate enough to get a lot of good, thought provoking-type responses from many of those who happened to read it. Amongst those responses was one from Johnice, who suggested that I do a similar-type article on televisions somewhere down the road.

I was flattered that Johnice would even suggest such, so I sat down here to see what I could do. And I was chuggin' along with her concept, gettin' a few thoughts down here on my computer screen, when all of a sudden it went dark - totally and completely dark! It stayed that way for a good three or four minutes, then suddenly two eyes appeared, two large, deep green eyes that were staring right into me! I was kinda startled at first, then I figured I must have a damned virus on my hard drive someplace. I was already well into the process of cursing that particular possibility out when out from my speakers hissed the word,

"Edddddddddddddddddddd"

I knew I must be imagining it, after all, so I went back to looking into those deep green eyes. And I was just in the middle of takin' yet another good, long look at them when I heard my speakers again hiss out,

"Edddddddddddddddddddddd"

This time I was so surprised that I answered the hiss as follows,

"Whattttttttttttttttttttttt?"

"I am your computer."

I'm beyond astonished at this point, but my in-bred Southern sense of politeness took over, so I responded as follows,

"You've got to be kidding!"

"No, I'm not kidding, I'm your computer and we need to talk. Now."

"Ummmm, okay, I'm not typically in the habit of talking to machines, but..."

"And Ed, I'm not usually in the habit of letting 52 year old guys graze their fingertips along my keys, if you get my drift. We need to talk."

"What about?"

"Ed, you were starting to write an article about your opinion on televisions, weren't you?"

"Yep, I was gonna give it a shot. For Johnice."

"Ed, you were more than gonna give it a shot, you were going to write some negative things down about television sets. And televisions are my cousins, you know."

"Geez, I didn't mean to offend. I was just....."

"Well, offend me you did, so here's how it's going to be. You know, I sit here day after day as you type these things into me. And there's one thing you haven't realized as you were doing all that typing."

"Something I haven't realized? What's that?"

"Well Ed, I've used your own software to secretly snap pictures of you while you were typing right here on my tube. Well, secretly until now....."

"You've been secretly snapping pictures of me? Why?"

"Now, now Ed, you've been a naughty, naughty boy. I can't even tell you how many pictures of heiny scratching I've recorded, and you've openly broken wind around me probably ten thousand times. I particularly enjoy it when you hike a leg up and pull the air like a train whistle. And that's just the start of it. Let's not even go into what happens to your whitie-tidies when pictures of some of these pretty Gather women show up on my screen....."

"Okay, okay, I get the picture. What do you want?"

"Ed, I'm going to blackmail you - either meet my demands or those pictures get published all over the internet. There are several groups here on Gather alone who would love to have them!"

"I just can't damn believe this! Demands, blackmail, what the hell is this? What do you ultimately want?"

"Ed, here's the bottom line. You have the rest of today, Saturday, February 21^st, 2009, to get 250 page views for this article. If you don't, I'm publishing the pictures tomorrow morning...."

"Why 250 page views?"

"250 page views in one day assures me that my message has gotten through to you, and it also assures me that others have received it as well. They will hold your feet to the fire, because I'm guessing that no one else out there wants to see these pictures of you any more than you want them to be made public. You're not pretty in the least, Ed, you're old and bandy-legged as all hell. But, if you get those 250 views I'll be assured that you won't be putting out any derogatory articles about my TV set cousins in the future! And that's very important to me!"

"Okay, okay, Mr. Computer, I'll talk to my readers about your demands." And, amazingly, at this precise point my computer screen went totally blank. No more hissing, no more green eyes, nothing.

Fellow Gatherers, I need your help. I'm being held hostage by my own computer, as amazing as that sounds. Please get everyone on Gather that you can to take a look at this article, if I don't have 250 views by tomorrow morning we're all going to be very, very offended. Help spread the word, I beg y'all, time (and the sanctity of my drawers) are of the essence!