He had gotten up late enjoying the luxury of not having to go to work; even so he couldn’t resist the draw of checking his email. Reaching to the cabinet he picked up the iPod and powered it on, as he typed in the pin he wondered how such a small device had made such a big impact on his routine. The large display was bright and clear, instantly connecting to his wireless network. Moments later his email was available for his review. He put down the device and thought maybe Joel was right, was he really that dependent on the net that he needed stimulation all the time? Certainly when he was at home. As it happened a lot of the email was junk interspersed with a number of jokes from a good friend. Putting the device down he turned over satisfied with his fix; he reassured himself that this obsession wasn’t as bad as smoking but it did follow a parallel path.
Hours later, he was following his other obsession Starbucks – sitting in Sutton he ordered his usual Hazelnut Latte and some toast, the cashier fumbled with the order. Already the arrival of his Latte had been announced at the end of the counter and yet the toast was still on display; jabbing at the sultana laden bread through the glass she finally identified my order before putting it to rest in the toaster. He thought that was it, but his torture wasn’t over. A buzzer went off and she returned to the toaster retrieving the bread from the device, a paper bag its destination. "Butter?" he enquired, a smile and a lot of searching continued. After a while she returned with three butter slabs and two jam tubs, thanked her and returned the jams and kept just two slabs. They looked at each other again "knife please", and she was off again – he sighed under my breath. He paid and went to collect his latte, it was gone someone else took it by mistake – inside he was screaming. In the end he got abandoned latte with a couple of squirts of syrup; it was done.
He settled into a seat outside; true it was cold but was to warm inside. The kids from the local schools had been released, and he started another blog entry trying to block out the screams and shouts from collection of girls behind him; where as the guys sitting in front of him were a much sociable volume level greeting each other with slaps, high 5′s and hugs.
He checked his toast and picked up the slabs of butter, they were frozen; like stone – he knew the toast wouldn’t survive the application so he worked his way through the toast dry. The sweet fruit in the toast provided the only taste required; easily his favourite.
It was getting cold, so he wound up his blog entry stopping only occasionally to sip on his adopted latte – he smiled happy with the entry and clicked on "send"…