Dilute.net: Words - Madlibs -Sestinas - My Poems - My PhotosI'm haunted by a toaster ghost (by Josh Mandel)The Breville Bit More Two Slice Die Cast Toaster thatI contemplated purchasing last Saturday now sits in purgatory, doomed to rattle in the cage of unexpiring virtual shopping cart. This chrome monstrosity is undeterrable -- pops up behind each news feed and between the paragraphs of every blog post to remind me of its tenuous connection to the living world. It senses me through cookies and device identifiers, analytics networks and their webs of inference, leaps out through real-time bidding systems into every browser tab. Those ghoulish toaster tendrils are robotic and unfaltering. I worry now the habit's so ingrained that even if I try to make amends and execute the purchase it will haunt me still. [selected from poems/paragraphs] (who the heck... ?) |