hope you're bored enough to read this.

So I am bored. How bored am I? Bored enough to stare into space. Enough to try and strike up online conversations with people to whom I have nothing to say. Enough to think that I am suffering from lack of food rather than just lack of something to do. Enough to write an entry all about boredom. Bored enough to do my graph theory homework? Not quite.

Being bored used to be a crime in my house. Well, no. Just stating that you were bored was the crime, and was punishable by chores. You could lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling for hours, and that was okay. But the minute you sighed and said, "Man, I'm bored," was your minute of doom. My parents considered that to be a cry for help. What we were really saying was "Please entertain me," which they interpreted as "Please use me for slave labor." Many times have I gotten as far as "I'm bor..." before realizing my mistake and suavely saving myself from washing the dishes by finishing with "...derline schizophrenic," which has actually led to a whole other series of problems.

There is a similar policy at work, except that there is no need to state your condition, although I'm sure you would get very rapid results. You can do anything you want, but you have to stand up straight. If the kitchen manager catches you leaning against anything, he says, "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean!" and assigns you to scrape grime off of something or other. I love orders that rhyme. Sometimes you can quickly scurry away before he says anything and escape, which also solves your boredom by getting you to play hide-and-seek from him. Me, I like to solve my boredom issues by thinking up more orders that rhyme.

But I am not at home, and I am not at the restaurant. I am at the computer lab, and I have nothing to do besides the intimidating graph theory assignment that I don't want to have to think hard enough to figure out. Boredom is no crime among the lab operators, but only because we'd all be convicted within five minutes of starting every shift. The boredom itself is probably punishment enough.

Lab boredom is no ordinary boredom. It is the kind of boredom you reach when you are free to do whatever you want, given your school books, a computer with high-speed internet access, and lots of time. I can kill a lot of time with a computer, but it is never enough. There is always more time waiting to be killed, and I can never commit a thorough enough time-massacre to get rid of it all.

I have another two hours before my shift is up, and chances are very good that I will be forced to choose between doing the assignment or gouging my eyes out due to my lack of anything else to do. It will be a tough call.