Justice exacts two tolls on freelancers in return for letting us work in our pajamas and chain-smoke at our desks. Double the Social Security tax and frequent excursions into the fiery pit of Kinko's. Anyone who has spent two hours at Kinko's knows what I'm talking about. It's kind of like a two drink minimum, only you wind up with an embolism instead of a hangover.

Kinko's, much like the "virtual office" and answering service, provides its customers with a valuable service. Namely, the means to simulate a reality which does not exist. This is why Kinko's marketing department tries very hard to create the illusion that its customers are very, very, busy and important people.

Just look around the store. There's an ad showing happy people in power suits video-conferencing with other happy people in power suits. The caption reads: "It's the way you can visit Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo before lunch time." (They mean "power lunch" time, of course. Kinko's real customers will be visiting the bus stop and the unemployment office before lunch time.) Another ad displays some really impressive-looking charts with the caption, "It's the way you respond when plans change over night." (The change of plans really threw me for a loop, Herb. So I made this chart. Look, it has three colors!) A third poster chirps "It's the new way to office!" As if everybody didn't know that office could never be a verb.

But for all its efforts at bolstering customer confidence, Kinko's mainly succeeds in bolstering customer bile. For one thing, they've got this emetic slogan, "From Hippie to High Tech!", plastered cheerfully all over the walls. Well, you know what they say. If you're not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart. And if you're not capitalizing on your former liberalism while paying current liberals minimum wage at forty, you have no brain.

"The Story of Kinko's", a paean to the virtues of hard work, vision, exploitation of cheap labor, and charging seven cents a copy (eleven for résumé stock) reads: "1970. A copy counter opens in Isla Vista, California. The store, a converted hamburger stand, is so small that owner Paul Orfalen has to wheel his copy machine out to the sidewalk each morning to make room for his customers... Paul names the store Kinko's (his childhood nickname inspired by his curly hair)..."

Why, it's the stuff of legend! A true blue, Horatio-Alger-pull-yourself-up-by-your-Birkenstock-buckles success story. And what a relief to know that "Kinko" is a childhood nickname inspired by Paul's curly hair! It's certainly better than knowing it was inspired by his enthusiasm for leather, his proclivity to rub up against small boys on the bus, or his alter personality, Kinko the Evil Clown.

The Story continues: "1980. As Kinko's original base of college students enters the workforce, Kinko's is there to help them grow their small businesses."

What about the continuing base of college students? Oh yeah, they're having trouble paying their tuition and trying to get jobs at Kinko's. They're having a tough time of it, though, because the graduate students and recent PhD's have cornered the market. And nobody's allowed to photocopy any portion of their textbooks there any more, anyway.

Let's face it. Everyone knows that Kinko's is just a place to copy your résumé or your screenplay, which, along with your basketball and your B.A. in English, are the international symbols for "I'm broke and desperate, but ya gotta dream." I mean, I don't believe all this new-way-to-office stuff for a Kinko's minute. We're all just a bunch of people trying desperately to get back to the old way to office. A bunch of people dreaming of the bounty of the office supply cabinet, the indiscriminate generosity of the office copier, the magnanimity of the office laser printer. Were those ever the days!

And don't think for a second that the Kinko's employee doesn't know it, either. Au contraire. Herein lies his strength. He smells your fear -- and you are afraid. Afraid your résumé is less than impressive. Afraid your cover letter is a tract on desperation. Afraid you won't find a job at all. Afraid you'll end up like him. Working at Kinko's. Power corrupts, and working at Kinko's turns you into a petty sadist.

Once, I brazenly tried to make a few black and white copies of some very old paintings printed in a very old book. I just wanted to show my friend what the paintings looked like without having to lug the enormous tomes all over town. I was sternly informed at the desk that I wouldn't be allowed to do so without first obtaining copyright permission. Criminy! If it weren't for that meddling clerk, I might have actually gotten away with reprinting the paintings without permission in my own upcoming deluxe coffee-table edition of the "Great Masterpieces of the Louvre"! I could have made millions reproducing the original work of others!

"Honestly," I said to the guy, "I could hardly hope to gross more than, say, three cents a pop for black-and-white, three-by-five inch reproductions of a Vermeer, what with the art market being what it is today." Still, the clerk firmly stood his ground. I'm sure Vermeer, wherever he is, feels protected.

My friend Scott feels protected, too. On attempting to photocopy his own screenplay, he was officiously barred from doing so. The script was copyrighted under the name Scott Balcerek. "But I'm Scott Balcerek!" he protested cheekily. "I don't care if you're Johannes Vermeer, pal. Says right here, copyright Scott Balcerek 1993. No can do."

Just recently, I shelled out 25 dollars for copies. I paid in advance. I waited, dutifully, poring good-naturedly over the "Story of Kinko's," for about 45 minutes. When the copies came back, they had schmutz on them. I said, "There's schmutz on these." Whereupon Satan's Little Helper responded, "Where?"

"Right here."

"Maybe there was stuff on the lens," he offered.

"Maybe that's not my problem."

"Well, we can redo them if you want."

"I want." We locked eyes. He snorted imperceptibly. I took that to mean "I'll get right on it." Then I waited another 45 minutes.

It was late by then. I was hungry. I had just popped in, blithely, under the childish illusion that you can actually "just pop in" to Kinko's. But now, 90 minutes later, I began to lose my patience. I blatantly ignored Little Helper's request that I "wait over there" (in the corner) and conspired to bore holes in the side of his head with my laser-like gaze. He requested a transfer to the other side of the counter. His request was granted. I peered at the piles of completed copies, which sat getting stale on the counter, in a futile attempt to set them afire. As the piles got higher and the lines got longer, the other customers groaned, sighed and wailed in despair. That's when I knew for certain that I had entered the abode of the damned.

Finally, I managed to flag down a clerk, a different clerk this time. (Beelzebub. Can I help you?). I inquired about my copies. "Oh, here they are!" he said, handing me my copies. I looked them over. They were the same ones. They hadn't been redone and I'd spent an additional 45 minutes reading, "It's the way to get great ideas off the ground!" I suggested he think of a way to get his ass off the ground, grabbed the schmutzy copies and bolted, furious, toward the door. As I kicked it open, I heard him call out after me -- the jeering taunt rung in my ears for hours -- "Are you sure? ...We can redo them if you want! ...Redo them if you want! ... Are you sure? ... Redo them if you want!..."

There was a writer who once said that it's dangerous to write at the computer because it makes everything you do look better than it really is. The same goes for photocopies, especially pristine ones of your résumé printed on milky crested linen. Like the Devil for Faust, Kinko's provides us with the means to edit and reproduce our pasts, with all the schmutz (the weekend-long hangovers, the days spent foaming milk and reading Cosmo) omitted and all the highlights highlighted. But when the surly clerk hands you your copies and drains your bank account with a smug curl of the lip, you know he's not buying it. He knows you're not a very, very busy and important person. He knows what you're thinking: There but for the grace of this résumé go I.

Carina Chocano graduated from Northwestern University in 1990, and has spent countless hours at Kinko's since. Currently, she writes scripts for CD-Rom games that will help mold the minds of the young children of America.