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Hands down the hardest decision I've ever made. Time magazine, for whom I hadn't worked in years, wanted me to do a piece on the exploitation of third world seamstresses, producing mass quantities of a popular American line of clothing. I was on it in a heartbeat. When I arrived in Tufango (the capital city), the squalor was incredible. Some women had been literally chained to their sewing machines, and others to looms, all to produce these goods by the thousands, every day. I may be crazy, but I think I even remember a whip and a pool of crocodiles. Wondering how best to lead off my piece, I decided that I do an ironic twist on whatever grotesque commercial slogan was employed by the capitalist bastards who put these women through this. I finally screwed up enough courage to approach one of the workers and ask. The answer? "It's like sex ... on your head!". Realizing that I was in the global epicenter of toessel production, I quickly backed away, drove back to the airport, flew home, and tore my story up into hundreds of tiny pieces. It was terrible what those women had to go through, but publish something against the toessel? Please. Do you have any idea how comfy this thing is?
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