The horrors of Snood compulsion were late to fall upon me. I heard about Alice Sharp’s nightmare and was curious. Then one lonely October afternoon, with the next cafeteria meal 70 minutes away and the next class not for 16 hours, I, then still an upstanding member of the human race, wandered to Snood.com and began what in my mind was only an experiment.Three months and eight late papers post, I face you, unable to reveal my true identity, ashamed of my time – killing obsession. It’s not killing time anymore. It’s killing me.

Mr. T. should add it to his list of warnings. All have Snood stories: how they first experienced it, the warnings from knowing friends, the clench of the initial marathon session. After the first hour, you’re hooked. Adios, O amigo Virtue. Hello, bastard trail of deceit and dishonor.

Then like a virus it spreads – an entire office building can easily begin the Snood Path .

Whole schools of thought and theory debate the truth behind Snood’s dark story.

Some in my Snood therapy group suspect “the Game” is a plan by the FBI to make America stupid. It’s a blank check for the Bureau to commit war crimes while no one notices. Soon, they say, the Snood plague will go global and assist their world conquest.

Or maybe, others believe, it’s the doing of Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden wants you to waste away from a principled lover of Tolstoy to a zombie for a high score. When’s the last time Dave Dobson expressed his loyalty to Washington over Kabul?

“I have here in my hand a list of 205, a list of names made known to the Secretary of State as being card-carrying members of the Snood Conspiracy and who nevertheless are still working and saping policy in the State department,” procaimed one addict in Group known only as ‘Joe.’

“I was totally blasted once and I started see ing Snood in my delusion. I then realized how they burrow into your brain with their evil Snood tendrils,” says another therapy group member, “Susie.” “I have surrendered my free will.”

Whenever I revert to my old Snood ways in a hopeless relapse of a 13-hour session, I arise from the computer only after some outside force requires me to move: intense hunger, loss of bowel control, carpal tunnel. When I stand, I drift inevitably to a mirror and notice how my ass is that much larger. Sometimes, after sitting so extensively, it falls asleep for hours at a time.

I am the William S. Burroughs of Snood. I have lost, and I resign all hope to The Man. My only mission is to report from the pit, the nadir of Snood junkiness, and keep others out of harm’s way.

I don’t hate Alice. I don’t blame conspiracies. I blame only myself for my weakness. I have seen the face of hell and I beg you: do not go gentle into that Snood night.