THE FAIRY TALE

          Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a medium-sized box.  The box had four walls and the walls were covered with a rough grey fabric.  The box wasn't perfectly square, and it wasn't perfectly symmetrical.  One wall was eight feet long, two were six feet long, and the wall opposite from the long one was only five feet long.  The box wasn't really closed because the short wall left a space about three feet wide, and so the man could leave his box any time he wanted, through that space, but most of the time he felt like he wasn't allowed.  If the man stood up, he could see over the top of his box to other boxes where other box-people lived.  Some days the man liked his box a lot.  Other days he didn't.

          On the days the man didn't like the box, he would sit and wish he could be someplace else.  But even when he'd sit and wish with all of his strength, wishing never took him out of the box.  Wishing real hard like that only made the time go more slowly, and then the man really felt like he just didn't like the box very much.

          Then one day a knight in shining armor came by the man's box.  Only, since this story takes place in modern times, it wasn't really a knight and he didn't really have shining armor and, in fact, he didn't come at all, it was his handiwork that appeared on the box-man's computer screen one day (while the man was trying very hard not to do anything productive).  The shining knight who didn't actually come was a programmer, just like the box-man, and he promised to set the box-man free -- at least for a couple hours each afternoon.  

          All the box-man had to do was click a link on his computer, and then he could walk out of the box just about any time he wanted, and nobody would care, because everything that used to be so frustrating and aggravating and slow would be taken care of by the computer.
  

          The box-man didn't like this idea at first, because he knew that computers weren't supposed to improve life but to complicate it, but in the end he gave in and clicked the link.

          This is the link he clicked.