2000-01-18

Raisin Bondage

Today at noon, as part of my employer's ongoing pursuit of keeping us all a bunch of Happy Campers, we had a Seminar on Stress Reduction Techniques. I thought, what the fuck, I'll spend an hour doing deep breathing and learning just how completely wired I am.

First, we all got branded with these little "Mood Dots," which were basically little stickers full of liquid crystal (the gunk that's inside of mood rings). The neat, crisp and perky Seminar Leader stuck one of these on my hand, and I joked, "Ah, so now I'm tagged and can return to the wild?" Her perky expression didn't change much, other than the fact that her smile seemed a bit tighter (I am used to this smile, having seen it on every teacher I've had since pre-kindergarten).

After a few minutes, I saw that my Mood Dot was still black. According to the color chart Miss Perk had on the overhead projector, I was in a state of severe distress. "How come my dot is still black?" I bleated, seriously concerned, since I didn't feel distressed, particularly.

Her smile grew tighter. "Well, now, let's just not pay all that much attention to your Mood Dot just now, and listen to the seminar."

"But...but..." I stammered, "the fact that my Mood Dot won't change is stressing me out."

Juvenile? Yeah, probably. At this point I was feeling much the way a kid feels when he enters the classroom and finds a substitute teacher. "Here indeed," you think at a time like this, "is someone who I won't see in this office again; I must fuck with her."

After a spiel about what stress does to your innards, Miss Perk handed us each a box of raisins. "Now, don't open your raisins until I tell you," she chided. I wanted to ask when we could get our mats out of our cubbies and have nap-nap, but I refrained.

"Open your box of raisins," she instructed us, "I want you to find one raisin that really speaks to you."

Was she kidding? Clearly there was more to this stress reduction thing than met the eye -- speaking raisins, indeed. I found a raisin that said, "Go ahead and humor Miss Perk, you cynical bitch."

"Hold the raisin up to the light," she said, "Get to know your raisin." Hello, raisin. Got any ginseng or power crystals on you? My aura is weakening.

Finally, we were instructed to actually consume the raisin. Here's the good part -- we had to close our eyes, and eat the raisin for a full three minutes. Have you tried to eat a raisin for three minutes? "Concentrate on the raisin. It's okay if your mind wanders; just bring it back to the raisin."

At the three-minute mark, my raisin was reduced to a pulpy shredded flavorless paste. Poor little raisin. After all the bonding we'd done. "Now, when you have achieved closure with the raisin, you may open your eyes." When she said that, I heard my boss barely suppress a derisive snort. I myself let out an audible snicker.

Now, I really do understand the purpose of this little exercise. It served as a model, if you will, of meditation techniques. I just thought it was hilarious.

And by the by, my dot didn't change color until I was down in the Xerox room, where it went from black to a lustrous emerald green. Fuck the raisins; next time I'm bonding with the photocopier.

lisamcc at 16:52:27

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