Video Chat Is Hell

Video chat. Damn it. Where’s the sin in simple telephony? Just dear old disembodied declarations delivered down landlines and across radio waves. The pretty picture is a photo formed on the big screen inside one’s head. But no. Video is a must. Each player poses for tiny TV, viewing all the others equally unready for primetime pictures. A videographic crystallization of one’s worst imagining. There is little listening, simply seeing and worrying. Is my look lame? Wow, that crazy cowlick. What is that wobbling strap of fat beneath my chin? And that imposing snoot flute, wild and wooly, leering like a lobby card for that epic disaster, When Nose Hairs Attack. Scissors in my desk. Can I trim right now with nobody noticing? And why is that a lampshade sprouting from my scalp? Wait. What’s he saying? Why’s he leaning? Where’s he going? Did I miss a matter of merit? Am I revolting? Why must we see any of this? Video chat. Damn it. My life is a hell.