Quote of the day: "It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over."- Edna St. Vincent Millay

     I was a young man the first time I heard Pink Floyd. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was the first time... I may have heard it sooner, but it certainly bares no significance like the current story. Probably seven or eight years old, at my Uncle Tom and Aunt Floss's house. At that age, I wasn't really into any particular kind of music. I had a few favorite songs, but mainly I played outside.

     My older cousins, though... they were Pink Floyd fans. They all had the posters up in their rooms, and I'm sure they all had a t-shirt. These cousins were anywhere from three to eight years older than me, and as far as my same-age-as-me cousins and I were concerned, they were on a different level of existence. Except sports, of course. You name the sport, and there was a bloody rivalry between young and old.

     This rivalry continued into the realm of practical jokes and cruel pranks. Often would one of us come back to our glass of Pepsi or milk at a family get-together and take a drink, playfully discovering that a mound of salt had been dumped in. Do you wonder if that's disgusting? Try it out. I dare you.

     So one Christmas, late in the afternoon's festivities- after the snow football game; the opening of a few presents and Secret Santas; after dinner and dessert and dessert part two; even after the first few sittings of card games and board games. I found myself nodding off in my older cousin's bedroom, while watching them play a hockey video game. After I dozed off, the fun began.

     After I'd dozed off, they put in a Pink Floyd album, and played the song 'Welcome to the Machine,' a trippy symbolism-laden criticism of the music industry and industrialism, period. Anyway, the song starts  out with machine sounds; similar to being in a factory and just staring at the ceiling. This song, applied just as I was entering dreamland, screwed with my brain.

     I was in a cold, dark factory. All the machines were working, heavy-duty, and waiting for me to screw up. It's like all the machines were built for the eventuality of me failing. I had to try to get out of the factory, but I couldn't screw up.

     I woke up, wide-eyed, scared and confused. I looked around. We all chuckled. I played a hockey game.

     Tonight I heard this song again, for the first time in a long, long time. I can't help but wonder if I've screwed up yet, and if I'll ever get out of this fucking factory.