[Performed on my behalf by Chris Travis]

Author’s note: This really happened. These are real tweets. At 10am on October 10, 2014, 2000 people with conference tickets started vying for 1000 on-site rooms via one hotel telephone system. After a half hour of not getting through, I began to tweet.

10:35am
Fleeting dialtone
For a moment, heart racing
Nope, busy again

10:53am
Questioning memory
A tone I thought I once heard
Maybe I didn’t

10:54am
Life has no meaning
We must choose our own values
Have I chosen well?

10:59am
Leaves turn, the wind blows
Telephones stand still, unmoved
Gray sky, the leaves fall

11:05am
Ancients spoke of flow
Bottleneck, constraint, lead time
Watch cost of delay

11:10am
Developers’ time
Beautiful and limited
Don’t use for haiku.

11:17am
The present moment
A signal of busy-ness
Mine is signaled here.

11:22am
A drop of water
Another and another
One hundred attempts

11:28am
A long time ago
I was not calling hotels
There was such a time

11:33am
There is hope, you say?
I must choose to believe it;
Choice is not easy.

11:41am
Programmer and coach
Acquiring new specialty:
Fruitless phone calling

11:47am
Great holy shitballs
Ethereal female voice
Holding gratefully

12:13pm
A kind voice intones
All rooms sold out. La Quinta?
Yes, I’ll drink a fifth.