Post Proctor Hoc

One of the great joys of employment is your boss. In a cruel twist of fate, my current, immediate superior is a 19 year old college student. And she’ll be damned if some uppity, college grad doesn’t do as he’s told.

Cruel Taskmaster: Did you put up those two stacks of cups.
Working Boy: Yes.
C.T: Oh dang, never, never put up two stacks of cups. It’s looks sloppy.
W.B: Really? I thought it looked like two stacks of cups instead of one.
C.T: Here take this stack and put it back.
W.B: Right away.
C.T: Do you know where it goes.
W.B: Yes.
C.T: Are you sure? Because yesterday there were some cups that weren’t put back right.
W.B: What was wrong with them?
C.T: They were just wrong. Did you do that?
W.B: Probably.
C.T: Don't never do it wrong. Here follow me and I’ll show you how to put them away.
W.B: Is this really necessary? I-
C.T: Also, the oatmeal this morning looked pasty.
W.B: Blast those infernal cooks!
C.T: No you stirred it too much that’s why it was pasty. Here, see how I'm stirring it right now. That's the good way. Now you try.
W.B: How's this?
C.T: Pretty good. You're a natural oatmeal stirrer.
W.B: Sweet.
C.T: But seriously, never stir the oatmeal too much or else people won’t buy it.
W.B: Why do you care if people buy the oatmeal?
C.T: Because otherwise we have to throw it away.
W.B: Well, ‘we’ might have to throw it away but it doesn’t really affect us. Let the big boss worr about cost overrun. Am I right?
C.T: Oh no. We’re a team.
W.B: Incorrect.
C.T: You should want to do a good job.
W.B: I don’t get paid enough to do a good job.
C.T: Why are you here then?
W.B: It was kind of an accident really, an accident born of the Devil’s mistress herself. I think she's out to get me. But not in a sexy evil-hot way, but in a stab me in the back while I mopping up yogurt way.
C.T: That reminds me. Did you mop up that yogurt yet?
W.B: It's next on the list.
C.T: Well after that don’t forget to refill the packages of sugar. Or else they will run out of sugar.
W.B: Fuck their sugar!
C.T: But they complain if they run out of sugar.
W.B: So they complain. I complain all the time; it’s natural, like the fates conspiring against me and mine.
C.T: Well, anyway you can take lunch if you want, but eat standing up behind the line in case someone wants to buy food from us.
W.B: I never eat standing up; it’s ungentlemanly. The only exception is I eat standing up in my apartment because I had to sell my furniture to pay the electric bill. I used to be somebody in case you haven’t heard.
C.T: You should work more than 4 hours a day if you can’t afford electricity.
W.B: No way, man. I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore.
C.T: Are those the same pants you’ve been wearing all week?
W.B: How can you tell?
C.T: Because of the coffee stain that’s been there all week. Did someone spill coffee on you?
W.B: I spilled coffee on myself. At the godforsaken hour of 6 in the morning.
C.T: I get here at 5:30.
W.B: Well, you should quit then because that's many kinds of bullshit.
C.T: Why so you can take my job? I worked hard to get where I am and I'm proud of an honest day's work.
W.B: Charming.
C.T: Wait, when did you have coffee?! Did you pay for it?! You can’t be taking coffee without paying for it. Also, you shouldn’t have time to be drink coffee. There’s too much to do.

W.B: I resent your tone and acute perceptions!

Approaching PERFECTION!

Everyone needs a nemesis. A proper nemesis falls into one of three categories: the successful, the nobody and the dear, dear friend. The successful is simply someone famous who has reached a level of social and monetary status in spite of his bankrupt nature and, most likely, homely appearance. The nobody is one not famous that you are forced to interact with be it in the workplace or neighborhood watering hole (fuck you Jerry!). And the dear, dear friend is pretty much all your friends because, well, fuck them anyway.

The nemesis fulfills a very important role in your life, namely to exist in order to fail so that you can feel better about yourself. In the case of the famous, since you have no real interaction with them, the best you can do is hope for their death or some kind of highly publicized not-cool sex scandal. Of course, such a destruction doesn’t happen every day and since you have no real role in bringing it about, it’s best to limit the number of these nemesis to under 50 or so. Personally, I pray every night that David Sedaris and Christopher Hitchens die of food poisoning at a dinner with Michel Houellebecq's and Houellbecq’s own brush with death experience causes him to convert to Christianity and start producing work along the lines of Bob Dylan in the 80’s. That would rule.

As for the nobody, you have many options at your disposal. Take my current profession as vending machine attendant for example. As a VMA I have to bend over countless rotating carousals and replenish their milk, candy bar, snack cup and ham sandwich supply. When I’m engaged in this activity it is not uncommon for some horrible and petty individual to approach me and make requests as to what should be placed in the vending machine. For example, today I was told I should bring more power bars and “the snack cups with M&Ms.” This, for obvious reasons, oversteps the bounds of decency and those two vending machine will see only the nasty power bars nobody likes and only snack cups without M&M for, oh, 2 weeks. In carrying out such an awesome plan, I defeat these nemeses with my vending machine power and thusly show them not only my superiority, but also my noble and refined spirit that they, as petty whiners, have no concept of.

Finally there is the close dear friend nemesis, the most evil and potentially harmful of all three. In order to figure out if a friend is really more of nemesis than a goodly chum they have to have something you want and can not currently obtain. In the past, I had many friend nemeses and lived a full and happy life venting my frustration through innocently placed questions about unrequited love or by putting sand in their scrambled eggs. There was however a time when I had no friend nemesis and was forced to face my self-hatred directly with my only recourse being luxury goods and bourbon. It’s important here to note that my temporary loss of friend nemeses was not so much due to my own objective success and grandeur, but almost entirely because of my ability to pick utter social and economic washes for chummery. Thus making near impossible not to be doing better than them. But the cruel fates of time have recently turned, and I’ve found myself fighting for a place at the hind tit once again while my cake eating friends sit around laughing at me.

What they don’t know though is their delicious cake eating only makes me stronger and happier and less of drinker, except on major holidays and weekends and Tuesdays.

One fell SWOOP !!!

Working Boy: Wow, that chair sure looks comfortable.
Renaissance Urban Sportsman: Good lord! It’s you!
W.B: What’s it made of?
R.U.S: Well, um, baby seal and elephant mostly. Two elephants actually. For the tusks. Which are used to position the chair in the room, and then discarded.
W.B: Where’d you get it?
R.U.S: Nepal or Egypt or Canada, I can’t remember exactly. I’ve been pretty busy taking in the finer things in life.
W.B: Wow, you’ve really been living it up. I heard rumors you even went to an Asian massage parlor.
R.U.S: Oh sure.
W.B.: What could be better than that?
R.U.S: Lots of things, you pathetic, servile nobody. Take opium for example. Did I tell you about when I went to the opium den in London with the Earl of Sandwich and Ginger Spice. Now that was a Monday afternoon!
W.B.: Even filth like me can see that.
R.U.S: Yeah, you look pretty gross and not rich. What are you doing these days?
W.B: We’ll get to that. Tell me more about your adventures.
R.U.S: There’s really not much to tell. I traveled, I spent paper money like it was coin money and coin money like it was paper monopoly money. I got drunk a lot, but a fine aristocratic drunk, which you could never achieve.
W.B: What else?
R.U.S: Well, let’s see. Oh, I went through a pretty big hat phase. I had to have every kind of hat. Straw, Panama, the one’s with the kangaroo on them.
W.B: You’ve lived such an extravagant and privileged life these last couple of weeks. That’s what makes this so terrible.
R.U.S: Wait, what makes what terrible? My sweet existence makes your terrible worthless existence terrible? My awesome hat collection makes your nothing collection so terrible?
W.B: You know what I mean. Renaissance Urban Sportsman, it’s time for you to go away for a while?
R.U.S: But I just got my peacock waistcoat back from the dry cleaner! I was going to wear it to the opera and spit sunflower seeds at the ushers!
W.B: I know, I know.
R.U.S: Don’t do it Working Boy! Here, have an oyster and pull up that Corbusier. I’ll have my man mix us up some martinis and we’ll go buy some puppies and kittens.
W.B: Don’t make this harder than it already is. You knew this day was coming. Besides we both know it hasn’t all been washed, but still hot pop stars and delicious minor royalty. What about the time when you ate a box of donuts and watched The View?
R.U.S: Who told you about that?!
W.B: The romance novels?
R.U.S: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
W.B: Come on, it’s not like you’re never going to come back. And I’ll have you know I’m working for very famous people.
R.U.S: You’re sure good at serving others, tool.
W.B: Shut your slightly fat face!
R.U.S: How dare you! I’ll have you know I only gained 10 pounds while you were away and I think it’s mostly luxury fat, the most elegant and refined of fats!
W.B.: R.U.S. let’s not fight. Here, take my hand, it’s time to go.
R.U.S: Where are you taking me?
W.B: For a walk.
R.U.S: Are there going to be any donuts?
W.B: No.
R.U.S: Mexican sweet bread?
W.B: Sorry.
R.U.S: A discussion of luxury watches.
W.B: Probably.
R.U.S: So are you making lots of money like at your old job?
W.B: Some things are more important than money.
R.U.S: What? Like wiping up coffee on your hands and knees while they stand over you in their Marc Jacobs dresses asking you to go get them some more honey?
W.B: Who told you about that?!
R.U.S: You did, with your pussy eyes and proletariat work polo. You fucked up, Working Boy. You fucked up.
W.B.: I’m going to miss you R.U.S. Hey, remember when you tried smoking all the spices and herbs in the cupboard?
R.U.S: Good times. I wrote the Earl of Sandwich a whole long letter about it. You know what I’m not going to miss though?
W.B.: What’s that?
R.U.S: The masturbating. That got a little out of control toward the end.
W.B: Oh yeah.