Oscar

Okay. There are a lot of things I am dying to chat about. But since I firmly believe in the one at a time mentality, I think there is one pressing thing to discuss – the one thing I want to devote my new entry to:

Oscar. Not the award. NOT a boyfriend. Oscar is the name I have given my help tool on my word perfect program at work. It is frightening to think of how attached I have become to Oscar. Normally, you get a paperclip. I could ignore a paperclip, or turn it off. No, Oscar is an orange tabby cat. He sits in the corner of my work screen and drives me bananas.

I don’t mind the tips, really. But it bothers me how much time the people at Microsoft must have put into designing this little guy…First. He moves like a cat. He stretches and lays around and sleeps. Oscar shows me his belly when he is in a deep sleep. The same way my cat does. He also bathes himself. I am not kidding. He washes his face, behind his ears – which is adorable- but eh also washes his rear end. I am not kidding. And I yell at my cats for that. Its awful. Did they have to be that realistic?

Oscar also has a variety of entertainments. Oscar meows when he has a suggestion. He purrs when I accept it. When it asks me if I want to save my document, he shreds the corner of my screen like he is clawing a couch or something. Oscar has a filing cabinet he gets out when I save, and a stamp with copies for when I print. He even has butterflies to chase when I am typing in an error free manner for a while.

I am frightened by how attached I am to Oscar. I turned him off one day and had him turned back on within an hour. What does that say about me? What does that say about Microsoft, that they understand a person on their computer is less likely to click away the little orange tabby cat I now view on a minute to minute basis.

Is office life really that lonely? Am I really that bored? I am not entirely sure. Maybe its because it reminds me of my cats. Maybe it keeps me from being bored when I am sitting at my desk with nothing to do.

Either way, Oscar is here. I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of him any time soon.