The revolution is most definitely going to be televised. There’s going to be wave after wave of TV cameras, all jockeying for a good angle, a decent vantage point, and the anchors are going to be sitting at their news desks, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, we’re bringing you live to frontlines of the revolution,” and all of the hippies are going to be sitting there in their plush leather recliners watching MSNBC on their sixty-seven inch plasmas, holding their worn paperbacks in their hands, “But … but … but I thought that the revolution wasn’t going to be televised.”

And he’ll look up at his bookshelf, at the rest of his “library,” his “collection,” Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair, nobody knows how to operate a motorcycle, Steal This Book, purchased for $6.99 from the sixty-five percent off clearance rack at Barnes & Noble, “I’m sorry, can you actually give me a different Barnes & Noble tote bag?” the memory flashes through of that particular transaction at the store, “Do you have any with Angela Lansbury’s face on it?” but they didn’t, he had to settle for an Alex Trebek.

It was probably still there somewhere, buried under all of those receipts being saved, the ones from Petland Discount, “Try shopping at Petland Discount!” the circular read, “If you buy twelve jumbo bags of cat food, the thirteeth’ll be on us!” which, if you think about it, that’s actually a pretty significant savings, what, $37.99 a bag? Sure, Purina is somewhat of a premium item, but just think about all of they money you spend on your food, on your dietary well-being, those are the thoughts running through the heads of everybody picking out cat food and dog food.

But try it, try to save those receipts for a full twelve months, because that’s what it amounts to, twelve bags, twelve months, roughly. And it’s not just the receipts, it’s the proof of purchase, it’s taking that giant empty cat-food bag out of the giant plastic cat-food bag dispenser that you bought to keep that dry cat-food smell somewhat localized to one area of the kitchen. “Have you seen the scissors?” questioned, lobbed out to no one in particular.

“Just don’t use the kitchen scissors!” the answer pointed straight back, but where else, upstairs? In the study? More clutter, more receipts. And if you forget a month, whatever, that’s just one month, you’ll get to twelve months eventually, you’ll get to twelve receipts, twelve proofs of purchase, you keep reassuring yourself, I’ll save that $37.99 eventually.

But the neighbors mentioned something about Petco, how they used to have a similar deal, a similar means of maintaining its customer base, free cat-food, keep coming back, until they stopped. One day it’s twelve receipts, twelve barcodes, one free bag. Today, not so much. How much longer until Petland Discount follows suit?

So it’s upstairs to the study, the home-office, whatever you want to call that side room where the desktop computer sits forever turned on, on top of that old desk, warped in the middle from the weight of its now antique boxy monitor. It’s always a challenge, looking for the scissors, for anything, moving aside stacks of coupons for Gillette Fusion razors or free archery lessons, coupons that surely must have expired by now, try not to make too much more of a mess, kicking up layer upon layer of old dust.

Accidentally nudging that old mouse and the computer jolts awake, how long was it asleep anyway? Ever since the wife bought that laptop, which you were initially against, and why? Why put up a fight over something that wound up making life a whole lot more convenient? You need to look something up on the computer? There it is, no need to go upstairs. But why not get rid of this old machine? Sitting here, eating up electricity, bandwidth, radiating heat, sucking up time and energy.

KaZaa still loaded on the screen, although it’s unlikely that any data is being transferred to or fro. And look, Steal This Album must have finished downloading sometime over the course of the past six years or so, technically that’s a success, no money wasted on this … this music cd? It’s not some sort of a revolutionary audiobook, no, it’s a heavy metal record, System of a Down, that’s probably a little disappointing.

“Breaking News” you can still hear from downstairs, it’s MSNBC, it’s Chris Matthews and he’s tossing to a correspondent, live from Egypt, live from Tahrir Square, “Chris, look at it, this is the revolution! It’s happing right now!” right on TV, right in front of the cameras, pass the popcorn, kick back and enjoy the show, because the revolution is absolutely going to televised, it’s going to be saved on our DVRs, you can watch as much footage as you want on Youtube. The hippies had it all wrong. They had everything wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.