Monday, January 10, 2005

In the Depths of Despair ( Dot Com)

**Disclaimer: The author does not recommend clicking on links in this post if you have no appreciation of black humor or if you are not inclined to exercise or develop one.**

Not long after we hooked up with an internet service provider for the first time, I hit a bad patch of depression. In a fit of self-destructive cyber urges, I found myself at the computer typing things into Google like "purpose of life," and "meaningless." The results were, needless to say, less than inspiring. Finally, with great angst and dramatic flair, I typed something like "despair.com" into the address bar of my web browser, and to my surprise an appropriate page popped right up. I laughed until it hurt.

Now tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor.

Since then, www.despair.com has become one of my favorite commercial sites on the web. I've not actually purchased anything, but Valentine's Day is coming up, and there are a few people I know who are warped enough to enjoy Despair Inc.'s Bittersweets, although I'm not sure I'm quite evil enough to actually send them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My students introduced me to this site sometime this past year, probably while (putting off) writing papers for our various English classes during the week before finals . . . I love it! It makes you laugh at the absurdity of your angst while allowing you to indulge it a bit for a moment . . .

Send the stuff! If the recipients don't love you for it, they're hopeless anyway! :)

alaiyo
(p.s. tenure paper delivery this morning met with lots of good reviews -- and I slowed down, okay? :) )

r said...

Cindy, a little OT here:
OT: Greg Hammonds, whose wife died of breast cancer, is hosting a comment fundraiser with the money raised to go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s programs for education and low-cost or free mammograms for low-income women. For every comment made, he or another of the sponsor's will donate $1. So, if you have the time to simply comment or even better to provide a link to direct traffic there, it would be super :D

Lucindyl said...

Beth--Huzzah for the tenure paper review completion!!! Am very glad to hear you slowed down. Was envisioning your limp and hyperventilated body on the floor in front of the tenure committee last time I heard you read it. ;) Seriously, congratulations.

Joyella said...

I can think of someone I'd like to send those Bittersweets to. hehe. I have seen some of those anti-motivational products before. Hilarious!