Last night I dreamed that the Real World had adopted the "Unix Philosophy."

I went to a fast-food place for lunch. When I arrived, I found thatthe menu had been taken down, and all
the employees were standing in a line behind the counter waiting formy orders. Each of them was smaller
than I remembered, there were more of them than I'd ever seen before,and they had very strange names on
their nametags. 

I tried to give my order to the first employee, but he just said somethingabout a "syntax error." I tried
another employee with no more luck. He just said "Eh?" no matter whatI told him. I had similar experiences
with several other employees. (One employee named "ed" didn't evensay "Eh?," he just looked at me
quizzically.) Disgusted, I sought out the manager (at least it said"man" on his nametag) and asked him for
help. He told me that he didn't know anything about "help," and totry somebody else with a strange name
for more information.

The fellow with the strange name didn't know anything about "help" either,but when I told him I just wanted
to order he directed me to a girl named "oe," who handled order entry.(He also told me about several other
employees I couldn't care less about, but at least I got the informationI needed.)

I went to "oe" and when I got to the front of the queue she just smiledat me. I smiled back. She just smiled
some more. Eventually I realized that I shouldn't expect a prompt.I asked for a hamburger. She didn't
respond, but since she didn't say "Eh?" I knew I'd done something right.We smiled at each other for a little
while longer, then I told her I was finished with my order. She directedme to the cashier, where I paid and
received my order.

The hamburger was fine, but it was completely bare ... not even a bun.I went back to "oe" to complain, but
she just said "Eh?" a lot. I went to the manager and asked him about"oe." The manager explained to me that
"oe" had thousands of options, but if I wanted any of them I'd haveto know in advance what they were and
exactly how to ask for them.

He also told me about "vi," who would write down my order and let mecorrect it before I was done, and
how to hand the written order to "oe". "vi" had a nasty habit of writingdown my corrections unless I told her
that I was about to make a correction, but it was still easier thandealing directly with "oe."

By this time I was really hungry, but I didn't have enough money toorder again, so I figured out how to
redirect somebody else's order to my plate. Security was pretty laxat that place.

As I was walking out the door, I was snagged in a giant Net. I screamedand woke up.