CIRCLES OF HELL

It's been too long since I've read/thought about Dante. So long, in fact, that I've forgotten how many circles of hell he has. However many it is, he missed one. There is a circle reserved for lazy bloggers--a circle in which I very often reside. But this time I realized where I was and took notes. This time I can describe the deepest circle of hell, the torture-chamber of the lapsed blogger.

It's called O'Hare International Airport, and it lives in Chicago. It sucks in the unsuspecting blogger and traps him far from internet access in a barren wasteland, where the only rest is fitful and the dreams are punctuated with a repetition ad nauseum of one damnatory formula.

"Welcome to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. For reasons of safety and for the sake of your health, we'd like to remind you that this is a non-smoking facility. The circle around the first concourse is also non-smoking. There are smoking areas in the circle around the second concourse. You may suck your nicotine while your posterior freezes there if you so desire."

Those were strange dreams. And I don't even smoke.