[SP] The Future is a Toothpaste Commercial, and I Can’t Wake Up
A toothpaste commercial gets beamed directly into my head while I'm asleep. It tells me We Live in the Future, but I know that's just a slogan they're using to promote a new kind of tooth-whitening gel. Two rows of shiny, digitally-rendered molars and incisors wiggle in pleasure as Enamel-Safe Bristles caress their heads.
I wake up from the dream drenched in my own piss because the appliance that alerts me when I need to wake up and urinate has disconnected itself from the internet overnight. A voice comes out of a speaker and tells me that a new software update has been released to stop this from happening, but the update isn't compatible with the cheaper model of appliance I have. I lie in my piss for a few minutes while I muster up the strength to get up and strip the bed.
While waiting for my sheets to wash I try to make coffee, but my subscription to the company that owns my coffee machine has expired. I can't find my credit card to renew the subscription, so I break the machine apart and it lets out a voice that tells me I will be fined using the existing credit card the company has on file. I wonder why the existing credit card the company has on file can't be used to renew my subscription, but decide it isn't worth thinking about.
As I drink my manually-produced coffee I turn on the TV the old-fashioned way with a remote, and it's playing the toothpaste commercial I'd been watching in my sleep. I watch the commercial in its entirety, then turn off the TV and sit in silence for about five minutes. The silence is broken when the machine that tells me it's time to go to work tells me that it's time to go to work, so I put on my shoes and do so.
I used to go to work in my flying car, but a few months ago the engine fell out. The news said the men who run the flying automobile company were supposed to go to prison, but instead they paid fifty million dollars to somebody and were given permission to make more cars with engines that might fall out. I was told my insurance policy had been amended retroactively to reflect that the manufacturer could not reasonably be expected to keep the engines on the inside of their cars.
I arrive at work and learn that due to a rounding error I am no longer employed at the company, and for liability reasons my personal items have been carefully placed in a large hole at the back of the building. The man whose job it is to look after the hole tells me that he received the application to retrieve my belongings, but it will take two working days for him to process. I ask why he can't just pull them out for me right now, but he laughs and tells me it doesn’t work like that.
I go home without my personal items, and sit down to try and make a phone call. Before I can dial a number, the telephone plays me a toothpaste commercial and I fall asleep. Two rows of shiny, digitally-rendered molars and incisors wiggle in pleasure as Enamel-Safe Bristles caress their heads.
The Future is a Toothpaste Commercial, and I Can’t Wake Up.