So I'm just sitting in the computer room, right, minding my own business, looking at x-rated gifs that I just got from that .de site, and exposing my genitals (in a mentally stable manner) to anyone who happens to pass by the viewing window, and it struck me how boring work is getting at the moment.
All the neat things to do, like pretending that the halon extinguishers have gone off and the only way out is by throwing yourself repeatedly at the armour- glass while the people on the other side look on horrified (especially as you choke to death in front of them) are pretty tired now, and it looks like I have to put finger to keyboard and bash out another couple of sentences to stop the screen saver from going off. (I've got the one that blanks the screen and put's up a "W/P document", "100 reasons why this job sucks shit" and every one of the reasons is something to do with one of my various supervisors personal hygene, sexual preference or single digit IQ) I put it on as a joke, but it's all stuck in NVRAM now, and I've got a Kamakuza 1000 X-compatible terminal that guarantees that once written, their NVRAM is really NV, barring a nuclear attack.
So I figure that's what I'm going to have to do - just to protect my job. I cut out the middlemen and ring up Gorby direct.
"Gorbs" I cry as he answers "How's it hanging"
Of course, I'm expecting his usual "4 inches from the floor" but he surprises me today with a new one
"6 inches from the floor, that damn Yeltzin!"
"Mick, Babee" I cry "Picture this - You, the Beatles, James Cagney and Benny Hill (rest his sole) on the cover of Newsweek. Whaddaya say, run that up the flagpole, see if it flies"
"No Newsweek" he says
"Well, waddabout, You Gracie Fields and Steve McQueen, Cover of Time? Drop that down the mineshaft and see what strikes oil?"
"No Time"
"You, Me, a couple of Hookers and Jamie Farr - Cover of WSJ? Pop that down your pants and see if you can whack off to it."
"No Wall Street Journal"
"How about.... You, Jackie Sheen, Elvis and Alfred Newman, cover of Mad - Slip that up your date and see what shits twinkies?"
"No Mad"
"Ok, my last offer, You, Normal price, 4 bucks, 4 bucks, 2 french hens, a TV dinner, and Ronald McDonald, front of the TV guide. Force that through your pituitary gland and see where you grow unsightly lumps and birthma..
"What BIRTHMARK?!?!?!?!?!" he shouts angrily
I hear him ferreting around the bedside table, looking for the big red button with "Toast" on it that they didn't disconnect after the attempted coup. I hear the click, and for once I don't care what the hell my supervisory team thinks about what the screensaver says about them and lemon popsicles....
spt@grace.waikato.ac.nz
Somewhere around here I lost episodes 2-5, and only have this one, episode 6
So I'm working at the London offices of Third-World-Exploitation International, an American combine that operates out of various contries and pour contributors money into overthrowing local government.
But that's ok, because I'm in public relations.
My first customer of the morning was a little old lady who sold pencils on street corners to support her third world foster child.
"Hello" I greeted her, smiling from behind my $6 a sniff aftershave.
She limped over to me on her spindly legs, having got a cut-rate hip replacement operation, giving the left-over money to us to distribute to the needy. If I remember correctly, I NEEDED a new set of wheels on the ATV that week...
Anyway, she hobbles over to the counter with a plastic bank bag in her world weary fingers, and sighs a little as she gets to the counter.
"I'd just like to pay this into my foster child in India's account"
"All payments to the far counter" I say, smiling in a benign cancer way.
She starts off for the far counter, and I figure that even if she makes it to the counter before cerebrel thrombosis strikes, I've got enough time for a coffee and a roll. I don't want to break a twenty, so I take the last three-fifty from the Ethiopian-Relief-Donation-Box and write an IOU which I file in the nearest rubbish bin.
I get back from my snack and the old dear has finally got to the far counter.
"I'd like to pay this into my foster child's account"
"Oh yes" I say smooooothly "which country would this be in?"
"India"
"Ah well, you've come to the wrong counter, this is Biafra. You want India, which is fifteen windows down, at the end of that queue that starts where you first came in."
As she falls to the floor in a faint, another customer steps past her. A pleasant WASP male, massaging his aching conscience by giving .0000015 of his weekly wage to the poor. Still, it pays the rent. Mine in fact.
I greet him casually, take his money, shoot him in the back of the head as he leaves and empty his wallet. PAYDIRT!, a VISA card! I fill out 5 donation forms, charging some airfares for the next Nicaraguan "Free" Elections and sign them for the dear departed before calling up our operations section and telling them to dump him in the dangerous part of town. They come and move him over to my desk. What a bunch of jokers! A couple of tazer bursts later and their humour is replaced by cool efficiency. You've got to know how to talk to these people.
I sit back in my luxury chair and notice that the dear old duck has managed to get to the Indian counter. I walk on over.
"Hello" she gasps "I've come to put money into my foster child's account"
"Which country?" I ask pleasant as can be.
"INDIA!" she snarls
"Ah Yes, what was the account number"
"Um, one three three, eight, eight, I, N, D. Bar two"
I look up the personal records of the child concerned. Died three years ago.
"Oh dear" I say
"What is it?"
"Well, I've got some bad news"
"Oh no! What is it?"
"Your child, number 13388IND-5.."
"Yes?!"
"She needs braces. And a wheelchair. And she's malnourished. I hope you bought enough for all that"
"But... but... I've only got forty dollars"
"Oh well, that'll have to do. It's a pity children have to suffer for the uncharitableness of others..."
"But what can I do?" she pleads.
"Well, if you really cared you'd have sold your home, be down to one meal a day until malnultrition or the cold gets you, and leave the lot to us...."
As she falls to the floor dead, muttering "Rosehip", I can but think of the smell of fresh napalm...