The plastic of the handset is beginning to sweat against my temple, a humid microclimate born of 42 minutes of pure, unadulterated frustration. My thumb is pulsing where I’ve been holding the ‘mute’ button, a nervous habit developed over 22 years of dealing with hardware that refuses to acknowledge my existence. I am currently staring at a router that has decided its only purpose in life is to blink a frantic, rhythmic red-a morse code for ‘I have forgotten how to be a machine.’

I am Jackson N.S., and by trade, I design escape rooms. I am a professional architect of confusion. I spend my days figuring out how to make people feel trapped just long enough to feel a rush of dopamine when they finally find the key in the bottom of a 52-gallon drum of fake slime. But the experience I’m currently enduring isn’t a game. There is no dopamine at the end of this. There is only the recursive loop of a technical support system designed by people who clearly view ‘resolution’ as a failure of the cost-cutting department.

While the hold music-a MIDI version of a song that might have been popular in 1992-scratches at my eardrums, I find myself flipping through the physical manual. My eyes snag on the word ‘Hyperbole.’ And suddenly, the room feels a little colder. For