I’ve been surfing on the ‘net all morning. First I checked my email and read through the many strings from my Association board, discussing fun stuff like the consequences of not paying your monthly dues. Then, I looked at an email from a discount traveling site advertising cheap last minute getaways. That led to my thinking, “I’d always wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. I’m gonna look that up.” I’m an “Anne of Green Gables” fan — the novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, not the TV show. I’d always wanted to live a week in the beautiful lush landscaping described in the books, doing things the “old-fashioned” way, running through country paths scented with wild hibiscus and lavender to visit my best friend who would live at the gabled cottage next door. Next door being, an acre over. How different from the houses and neighborhoods we’d been looking in lately. I’d announced before that I’d be heartbroken if Prince Edward Island has been taken over by technology and developed, and now resembles New York or Los Angeles. So, today, I finally found out.

Prince Edward Island’s official online site says that the central northern part of the island, now named “Anne’s Land” as it is the setting of Anne’s story, remains largely unchanged from how it was described by Ms. Montgomery. 2008 happens to be the 100th anniversary of the year “Anne of Green Gables” was first published, and the Island is doing a huge celebration. How charming!

2008 also happens to be the year we’re poor.

I downloaded the “Anne’s Land” section of the site’s free guidebook, and looked through it wistfully. All morning, aside from a couple of blog posts, this has been what I was doing. Mr. W has been at the gym for hours, I’m stranded at his house until he comes back, and all I’d described above was researched/done on his laptop. In the middle of the laptop’s screen, very quick lines flash by. It’s barely perceptible, but you do see red flickers if the background happens to be dark. What these flickers are, are short sentences written and run in a program that Mr. W recently purchased. They’re designed to be “read” by your subconscious as you work on your computer, and your conscious doesn’t pick them up, but the subconscious “programs” you. Remember that old scandal about Coca-cola and popcorn ads that used to flash invisibly in-between movie frames to get people to buy more Coke and popcorn, then got banned because the government ruled it was unethical and illegal to “mind control” people for financial gain? I don’t know how to turn the program off, but I’m also not sure what all the lines say, so right now I may be programmed to do something horrible. Knowing Mr. W, it’s probably stuff like “You will be 12% body fat.” “You are comfortable with your finances.” “You will be wealthy.” But it could also be, “You want to give everything to your fiance.” “You will say ‘yes’ to everything he asks.” “You feel your horniness increasing.” Cuz I mean, he KNEW he was going to leave me stranded for HOURS with nothing to do while he was at the gym, and the laptop is just sitting here, glowing at me in the room. Hours of fun brainwashing.

If I start to do things that are out of character or not in my best interest, and Mr. W appears to be exponentially happier, then you guys know what has happened to me.