I Need a Title for this Story
Remember that story I (or Gwen) posted ages ago about this kid who was in love with an older woman? No? Well, here's part... er... five of it anyway. >.> This entry, unfortunately, has to be public, so feel free to skip it. THANK YOU, Flist, for tolerating me.
The nauseating scent of love and sugar cookies mingled in the cold February air.
Dominique, despite her many flaws, was great at baking. Unfortunately, she chose to only bake stupid things like sugar cookies. No one over the age of five really likes sugar cookies. The sugar cookie is always changing its appearance during every holiday function. On Halloween, it takes the shape of a hideous, obese, orange pumpkin. On Christmas it looks like the beard Jesus so wonderfully sports on his chin because someone always manages to burn it. (Er, the cookie. Not Jesus.) During Valentine’s Day, it looks like an anatomically incorrect heart, and no one likes eating those. No matter what holiday it is, the texture of the sugar crystals always feel like artificially flavored sandpaper on one’s tongue. The metamorphosis that the cookie undergoes throughout the year makes one wonder if the cookie is really a part of the CIA. The CIA has been known to distribute certain baked goods throughout our glorious nation, but how far will it really go? Will it recruit Girl Scouts? Has it already? What about the Boy Scouts? Is the CIA sexist?
As I theorized about this conspiracy, Dominique glared at me from across the room with her arms folded across her chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
I stuck my tongue out childishly, grabbed my London Fog trench coat, and headed outside.
When I stepped outside, I was disgusted by all of the couples in my tri-state area, holding hands and cuddling. (Because I am so terrible with appositive phrases, I feel the need to clarify that I mean that they were holding hands and cuddling with each other. Not me.) I always need to keep one hand free to grasp my stylish briefcase. I’ve actually never kept anything of tremendous value in my briefcase; I just carry it around to make me look important during business meetings.
Speaking of which, I was almost late for a meeting at my place of work. When I got inside the majestic building with its grand, reflecting windows, I lazily shuffled into the conference room. Today I was supposed to get promoted, so of course I could shuffle in nonchalantly. Perhaps even with a girl named Chalantly wrapped around my arm, which was currently sporting a ridiculously blingin’ Rolex that was too loose for my feminine wrist.
In the centre of the room was a hideous, round table made of oak. It gave off the impression that we were all equal, or that we were a tasteless group of dastardly knights who preferred to carry portable laser pointers instead of cumbersome lances. The table was way too large for the room, and the men sitting around the table were too corpulent for the chairs. I adjusted my Armani tie and took a seat next to José, who had just been given a permanent position in this version of Hell on Earth, which was great since he’s the only one out of all of us who actually does something productive while he’s here. Despite the fact that all of us were sitting around the communist table of equality, Sir Chasm embraced the mistress known as capitalism and sat himself down on a chair that quite resembled the “ghetto” version of an Elizabethan throne. This disgraceful piece of furniture definitely wasn’t from IKEA.
The other bosses and supervisors walked into our business meetings with doughnuts or muffins in their hands. The head of it all, Ms. Anne Thrope, to her utmost dismay, was forced to take a seat next to Sir Chasm. Despite Ms. Thrope’s misleading name, she actually was a wonderfully genial person. She enjoyed conversing with nearly everybody, and she especially enjoyed discussing the weather. This was superb, since I had the tendency to frequently engage in long, intense, passionate discussions about the weather. No one aside from her enjoyed listening to me rant about the racist names that hurricanes always get.
“First I would like to congratulate Nick,” Ms. Thrope started, “on his promotion.”
A smug smirk settled itself on my face, with the intention of residing there until I began to whither away as a corpse, and even then I doubted that it would disappear.
“Your honorable contributions to this company help keep it running smoothly.”
José snorted audibly, and I glared at him. Alas, I couldn’t stay angry at him because he was wearing those gorgeous D&G glasses of his. You know, the fake kind people wear to make themselves look important.
After the congratulations were said, we discussed the dire state of the economy or something like that. I really wasn’t paying attention because it didn’t directly concern me. I was also getting ready to purchase for myself a boat of some sorts.
Oh, calm down.
I’m not taking about a yacht or anything. Just a boat that I could zoom around the local pond with the help of a remote control. Normally I’d feel uncomfortable with the thought of electricity and water mixing, but last weekend I met this idiot seven-year-old who teased me for feeding the Canadian geese. Luckily I provoked them into chasing him. How was I supposed to know that Canadian geese weren’t friendly? They’re Canadian for crying out loud (but not really because crying out loud would make me look more mentally unstable than I already am, unless of course I were in a movie, in which case my insane actions would look normal because the audience would be able to identify with me, although they would never admit it to one another.)
... Remind me to stop drinking before work.
My new office was absolutely dazzling. It was a corner office, with a gorgeous view of the city. I had a massive bookcase in one corner of the room, and I decided to fill it up with leather-bound philosophical books that’d make me seem unfathomably intelligent. Of course those books would all be purchased using the glorious “Might We Recommend This!” feature provided by the brilliance that is Amazon.com. Nothing could ever be better for Nietzsche.
There was a grand mahogany desk in the back of the room. The chair that accompanied the desk was a deep shade of navy that intensified the color of my dark eyes. The carpet was beige like the oatmeal mother used to make for me before I’d trot off to school with a padded My Little Pony backpack resting upon my fragile shoulders. Ahh, fond memories of the 9th grade.
Adjacent to the massive windows were two potted trees that seemed to be slightly tropical. They were the kind of plants that looked fake and real at the same time. On the one hand, a living plant would make me feel more important. On the other, a dead plant that used to be living would make me feel like a failure. But if I attempted to water the dead plant, I would look like an idiot. What a dilemma I was in.
There was a dark blue lamp that was placed on my desk as a gift. This lamp was perfect because I could turn off all of the other lights, switch on the lamp, and give the false impression that I was doing something important in the dark hours of the night. Instead, I knew that I would be hunched over the desk, drawing Bugs Bunny in a dress. Then, when someone would hesitantly come into my office, I could look up at them with a crazed look in my eye, highlighted by the shadows casted by the lamp. Or I could spin around slowly on the swivel chair with an extremely expensive cat (or José) in my arms and pet it (or him.)
The best part of the room was the door. Finally, no one would bother me. Only José, Amir and maybe Phil would be allowed into my new groovalicious pad (or whatever it is that the kids are saying these days; I can never keep up.)
On my first day as a businessman with a very important title, I took a long nap.
Then, after work, we all had a party for Valentine’s Day, and the company’s accomplishments or something. The key detail is that there was food. The food, unhappily, got me into a slight amount of trouble.
“What kind of dressing would you like on your salad?” Phil asked me.
“What kind do you have?”
“Russian, French and Italian.”
I frowned. “That’s racist.”
“What’re you talking about?” Phil demanded, confused. “They’re just different types of dressing!”
“But you can’t ask me to choose which one I prefer more! I don’t play favorites with race or salad dressing!”
“But the dressings themselves don’t actually represent the race!” Phil argued.
“So they’re stereotypes!” I concluded, throwing my arms up into the air, although not literally.
Everyone in the office looked extremely disgruntled. I didn’t care. They were all ignorant and unworthy of my time.
That night I skipped over to Dominique’s house with a spring in my step and some new business cards in my pocket. I couldn’t wait to tell Dominique the great news. When I got there, she was waiting for me in a gorgeous pair of violet Carlos Santana pumps. Next to her I looked like Napoleon standing next to the Statue of Liberty.
“I have great news to tell you!” I said whilst jumping up and down like a kangaroo.
“What?”
“Skittles were ten percent off today! José bought me three bags of them!” I squealed as I reached into my pockets and pulled out the fruity candy. A few of my new business cards slipped out with the delicious goodness.
Dominique picked up the cards and asked, “What’re these?”
“Oh, yeah, I got promoted today too,” I shrugged. “New office and whatnot.”
She exclaimed, “That’s absolutely amazing! I never thought you’d get promoted!”
I glared. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”
“I just meant that it is kind of weird for you to get promoted since your name isn’t a pun or anything. It seems like all of your supervisors were blessed with cruel parents who had horrible senses of humor.”
She then baked me some strawberry cupcakes, which made me forget my anger.
“These cupcakes always make me forget my anger,” I said to her.
“I know.” She laughed because I had strawberry frosting on my nose.
My lips contorted themselves into a parabola, and she teased me for frowning.
“Leave Britney alone!” I demanded, referencing an Internet phenomenon and my unrequited love for Britney Spears at the same time.
The next day I strutted into work with an elitist cup of “hot java” pressed to my lips. I couldn’t stand the taste of coffee, so I secretly just had a cold cup of chocolate milk in my hand.
“Sir!” shouted a young person as he briskly approached me. “Your meeting with the movie executives has been changed to before lunch, and it’s at that new restaura--”
“Who are you?!” I barked.
“Your new assistant!” he said as if he was expecting me to cry out in hysteria and confusion, like a young child lost in the park during a baseball game because said young child was terrible at most American sports and only cared for curling, so he got teased for being inadequate, but what the hell did all of the other PBS-loving five-year-olds know?!
Painful memories aside, I now felt elated and the little voice in my head shouted in jubilation. (No wonder I wasn’t married yet.) After months of working at this place, I had finally received, for my personal use, an assistant. This new assistant was young and gorgeous. His light, straight, wispy hair fell into his dark brown eyes. The cobalt shirt that he was sporting looked great with his pale complexion. Urgh, ivory.
“The name’s Christopher,” he said with his soft hand outstretched.
Aha! The handshake. First kinetic impressions were always important. I was prepared to amaze this new kid with my awesome strength. I went to shake his hand and responded with, “I’m going to call you Basil.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said, grasping my hand very tightly, which caused me to nearly let out a girly squeal.
Well, that went horribly wrong.
I was ten minutes early to my meeting at Potemkin Village, so I spent all of that time coloring on one of the menus and completing the fun games.
“Vut did you draw, sir?” inquired the waitress in a sultry Russian accent.
“Armageddon,” responded I without looking up.
“How cute,” she said monotonously whilst ruffling my hair.
How dare she mistake me for a twelve-year-old. She reminded me of that annoying bouncer from Prague! In an attempt to make myself look more mature, I attempted to grow a mustache in three seconds. When that didn’t work, I tried to complete the crossword.
“What’s an eleven-letter word for ‘impossible to avoid?’” I asked the waitress.
“Heyo, it’s Nick!” shouted an unfortunately familiar voice from across the room.
A man and a woman in grey business suits approached me. Although the two business suits which they were wearing were entirely different, they were both equally stylish. I thought we’d only converse over water and saltines, but of course I was wrong. For the next hour, they talked about movies, entertainment, the economy, and Anderson Cooper. I, however, contemplated stabbing myself in the eyeball with my fork, but I couldn’t decide which I eye I wanted to lose. My magazine about the latest fashion trends in piracy hadn’t arrived yet, so I couldn’t make an informed decision. Improperly placed eyepatches always prevent dashing young men like me from developing healthy, loving relationships with women. This meeting was such a waste of time, even though I managed to secure a major ad deal with these two buffoons.
“It was great to see you guys again,” I smiled before we parted ways.
“Here’s your coffee, sir,” Christopher said to me when I got back to the office.
“Thanks, Basil,” I chirped as I grabbed the cup. Then I promptly dropped it into the nearest trashcan. I couldn’t tell Chris that I didn’t drink coffee. He’d think I was a pansy.
Somewhere in the distance I heard a man cry “PC Load Letter?!” but I ignored him. I opened the door to my office and sat in my glorious swivel chair. Oh, the fun I’d have on this piece of furniture. I had also received a new keyboard, so of course I celebrated this moment by rearranging all of the keys on my keyboard to spell out rude words. Hoorah for productivity! Then, for about half an hour, I admired my amazing D&G charcoal suit in the mirror. After a few fierce struts and twirls in the privacy of my office, the amateur modeling got old.
That is when I was hit with the need to bother some of my inferiors, so I went outside. I, to my utmost surprise, collided with José who was standing in front of my door with a bunch of papers clutched to his chest.
“What’s going on?” I asked, oblivious to what was going on.
“We’re having an impromptu meeting. Our ad idea fell apart and we need to come up with something before eight or we’re going to lose a sea of money.”
I turned to slam my head into the wall, but instead my eyes met a motivational poster. Yes! Perhaps this poster would help me keep myself together.
“FAILURE: What your mother’s birth control experienced nine months before you were born.”
I saw the beige walls closing in on me, and in a moment of terrifying hysteria, I gasped audibly for oxygen whilst clutching my throat.
Suddenly, thousands of pieces of paper were thrown into the air and gliding downwards violently. I felt another pair of lips attach themselves forcefully to mine and found myself inhaling José’s delicious Paul Smith Extreme.
It took me five minutes to recuperate from this horrific incident, and I made José elucidate everything to me in explicit detail.
“Well, you were acting like a cat that was about to be thrown into the Black Sea, so I figured I’d help you out by breathing a little life into you,” he explained matter-of-factly.
Before I could ask him anymore questions, my assistant strutted over, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into the conference room. I spent the next hours groaning, panicking about my future, and attempting to fix my hair clandestinely. (Hmm, sounds a bit like my accidental vacation in Vancouver.) Thankfully, at the last moment, Amir came up with an idea for an ad that saved all of our jobs. It involved an annoying jingle and an awkward sexual innuendo, which nowadays seems to be a requirement for most successful ads.
I slowly exhaled a sigh of relief and sped back to Dominique’s place on my Segway. The cold air froze my untidy hair, and I knew that Dominique would be furious when I got home because she hated my Segway.
To quote the immortal catchphrase of trendy girls from the 90s: “Whatever.”
I pulled into the driveway of her home and let myself into the mansion.
“And where have you been?” she nagged.
“Working.”
“You’re always working.”
“There’s always work to be done.”
I dove into the couch, hoping it’d engulf me and take me to a world of unicorns and dust bunnies. Instead, I was still stuck listening to Dominique.
“Maybe you should take a week off or something. I was thinking that maybe we could go on vacation to-.”
“No.” I rolled over and hung upside down in an attempt to find the remote control from underneath the leather couch. Perhaps Dominique had an ‘off’ button.
“You can afford to miss a few days of work! You never spend any time with me!”
I stretched myself across the couch and realized that was true.
“This is true,” I conceded whilst stifling a yawn.
She frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “What do you even do for a living?”
“I’m a deipnosophist,” I managed to mumble before dozing off.
I awoke to extremely high-pitched screaming the next morning. I thought it was Dominique, but then I realized that it was just one of the ladies from The View, since the television had been turned on. When my vision finally cleared, I realized that the screamer was actually Regis Philbin. What a strange event to wake up to.
“Nick, get up!” my girlfriend commanded. “We’re going to an art museum.”
How horrid.
“I don’t believe in art!” I shouted with my head under a pillow. It came out sounding a bit like “I dunf bloof inrt.”
“I don’t care!” she snapped.
“No one ever cares!” I pretended to sob into the pillow.
We took my Phantom to the art museum, which was a horrendous waste of time. I could’ve been making money, but instead I was stuck staring at a painting of water lilies that looked more like massive globs of color. What trash.
In an effort to entertain myself, I decided to mock everyone around me.
“That painting is quite fabulous,” said a portly man in his fifties. He was looking at Jack Vettriano’s “The Philosophers.”
“Mhm, indeed,” I chimed in whilst adopting a false English accent.
“Oh, I agree with your comment completely,” said a woman with outstanding hair. “I love how warm the colors are.”
“And the soft texture of the clouds.”
A strong urge to ingest lead-based paint consumed me.
“What the hell are you two on about?” I spat. “There’s more to this painting than soft clouds and warm colors. What about the conflicting image of restraint and freedom? Individuality and conformity? Clearly there is an existential undertone to this painting that references the Yuppie subculture of the 1980s.”
“How intriguing,” Mr. Portly chortled.
“Hmm, this man is slowly becoming my favorite artist,” Mrs. Outstanding said.
I blinked, dumbfounded. “What’re you, a misogynist? Most of this man’s work is crude, commercial, sexist, and devoid of meaning. If you want to see real art, take a look at this building. Considering how architecturally conservative the other buildings around it are, this museum is a spark of modern ingenuity, although I understand how it gets overlooked since it is surrounded by so ma-.”
Dominique roughly grabbed me by my biceps and led me out of the museum. Thank the lord.
“Why do you always have to embarrass me out in public?”
“Why must you always make me go out in public? You know I enjoy being a pariah,” I frowned.
“No one asked you to interact with anyone,” she said with the attitude of a teen girl.
“My therapist did,” I responded, suddenly remembering him. “He’s afraid I’ll start talking to myself again.”
“I don’t think I can see you anymore,” we both said at the same time, surprisingly.
The slight discrepancy was in that she was referring to our romantic relationship, while I was referring to my eyesight since I had just donned my new Versace sunglasses. Nevertheless, we decided then to part ways. I would return to my humble abode to do some laundry, and she would use her amazing legs to stride back to her mansion.
... Damn.
“WAIT!” I shrieked as I ran after Dominique, who was only about three feet ahead of me. “You used to love my ridiculously awkward comments!”
“It’s impossible to sustain a proper, serious conversation with you.”
“Let’s discuss relations between Russia and Canada right now!” I implored.
“Nobody cares about that! Just like how nobody cares about your job!”
“Why is my work such a problem? Don’t you have to travel all over the world for your job?”
“Well, yeah, but not anymore.”
“Why?”
“I’m on maternity leave.”
I felt like I had just been hit in the stomach with a Maxim gun.
“...WHAT?!”
“Don’t worry; it’s not yours.”
This time I felt like she had just thrown an elephant at me.
“WHAAAAT?!”
She led me into a hipster café and tried to explain that she was carrying the baby for her two male homosexual friends, but my brain refused to comprehend anything.
“So you’re gay but you’re pregnant?”
“No. I’m carrying the baby for my gay friend.”
“You’re having a gay baby?”
“No. My friend is gay, so he and his partner-”
“Wait, your friend is gay?”
She rolled her eyes, got up, and left me sitting at the table with a cold cup of chocolate milk in front of me. Tonight I’d be drinking away my troubles with the Nesquik bunny.
The nauseating scent of love and sugar cookies mingled in the cold February air.
Dominique, despite her many flaws, was great at baking. Unfortunately, she chose to only bake stupid things like sugar cookies. No one over the age of five really likes sugar cookies. The sugar cookie is always changing its appearance during every holiday function. On Halloween, it takes the shape of a hideous, obese, orange pumpkin. On Christmas it looks like the beard Jesus so wonderfully sports on his chin because someone always manages to burn it. (Er, the cookie. Not Jesus.) During Valentine’s Day, it looks like an anatomically incorrect heart, and no one likes eating those. No matter what holiday it is, the texture of the sugar crystals always feel like artificially flavored sandpaper on one’s tongue. The metamorphosis that the cookie undergoes throughout the year makes one wonder if the cookie is really a part of the CIA. The CIA has been known to distribute certain baked goods throughout our glorious nation, but how far will it really go? Will it recruit Girl Scouts? Has it already? What about the Boy Scouts? Is the CIA sexist?
As I theorized about this conspiracy, Dominique glared at me from across the room with her arms folded across her chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
I stuck my tongue out childishly, grabbed my London Fog trench coat, and headed outside.
When I stepped outside, I was disgusted by all of the couples in my tri-state area, holding hands and cuddling. (Because I am so terrible with appositive phrases, I feel the need to clarify that I mean that they were holding hands and cuddling with each other. Not me.) I always need to keep one hand free to grasp my stylish briefcase. I’ve actually never kept anything of tremendous value in my briefcase; I just carry it around to make me look important during business meetings.
Speaking of which, I was almost late for a meeting at my place of work. When I got inside the majestic building with its grand, reflecting windows, I lazily shuffled into the conference room. Today I was supposed to get promoted, so of course I could shuffle in nonchalantly. Perhaps even with a girl named Chalantly wrapped around my arm, which was currently sporting a ridiculously blingin’ Rolex that was too loose for my feminine wrist.
In the centre of the room was a hideous, round table made of oak. It gave off the impression that we were all equal, or that we were a tasteless group of dastardly knights who preferred to carry portable laser pointers instead of cumbersome lances. The table was way too large for the room, and the men sitting around the table were too corpulent for the chairs. I adjusted my Armani tie and took a seat next to José, who had just been given a permanent position in this version of Hell on Earth, which was great since he’s the only one out of all of us who actually does something productive while he’s here. Despite the fact that all of us were sitting around the communist table of equality, Sir Chasm embraced the mistress known as capitalism and sat himself down on a chair that quite resembled the “ghetto” version of an Elizabethan throne. This disgraceful piece of furniture definitely wasn’t from IKEA.
The other bosses and supervisors walked into our business meetings with doughnuts or muffins in their hands. The head of it all, Ms. Anne Thrope, to her utmost dismay, was forced to take a seat next to Sir Chasm. Despite Ms. Thrope’s misleading name, she actually was a wonderfully genial person. She enjoyed conversing with nearly everybody, and she especially enjoyed discussing the weather. This was superb, since I had the tendency to frequently engage in long, intense, passionate discussions about the weather. No one aside from her enjoyed listening to me rant about the racist names that hurricanes always get.
“First I would like to congratulate Nick,” Ms. Thrope started, “on his promotion.”
A smug smirk settled itself on my face, with the intention of residing there until I began to whither away as a corpse, and even then I doubted that it would disappear.
“Your honorable contributions to this company help keep it running smoothly.”
José snorted audibly, and I glared at him. Alas, I couldn’t stay angry at him because he was wearing those gorgeous D&G glasses of his. You know, the fake kind people wear to make themselves look important.
After the congratulations were said, we discussed the dire state of the economy or something like that. I really wasn’t paying attention because it didn’t directly concern me. I was also getting ready to purchase for myself a boat of some sorts.
Oh, calm down.
I’m not taking about a yacht or anything. Just a boat that I could zoom around the local pond with the help of a remote control. Normally I’d feel uncomfortable with the thought of electricity and water mixing, but last weekend I met this idiot seven-year-old who teased me for feeding the Canadian geese. Luckily I provoked them into chasing him. How was I supposed to know that Canadian geese weren’t friendly? They’re Canadian for crying out loud (but not really because crying out loud would make me look more mentally unstable than I already am, unless of course I were in a movie, in which case my insane actions would look normal because the audience would be able to identify with me, although they would never admit it to one another.)
... Remind me to stop drinking before work.
My new office was absolutely dazzling. It was a corner office, with a gorgeous view of the city. I had a massive bookcase in one corner of the room, and I decided to fill it up with leather-bound philosophical books that’d make me seem unfathomably intelligent. Of course those books would all be purchased using the glorious “Might We Recommend This!” feature provided by the brilliance that is Amazon.com. Nothing could ever be better for Nietzsche.
There was a grand mahogany desk in the back of the room. The chair that accompanied the desk was a deep shade of navy that intensified the color of my dark eyes. The carpet was beige like the oatmeal mother used to make for me before I’d trot off to school with a padded My Little Pony backpack resting upon my fragile shoulders. Ahh, fond memories of the 9th grade.
Adjacent to the massive windows were two potted trees that seemed to be slightly tropical. They were the kind of plants that looked fake and real at the same time. On the one hand, a living plant would make me feel more important. On the other, a dead plant that used to be living would make me feel like a failure. But if I attempted to water the dead plant, I would look like an idiot. What a dilemma I was in.
There was a dark blue lamp that was placed on my desk as a gift. This lamp was perfect because I could turn off all of the other lights, switch on the lamp, and give the false impression that I was doing something important in the dark hours of the night. Instead, I knew that I would be hunched over the desk, drawing Bugs Bunny in a dress. Then, when someone would hesitantly come into my office, I could look up at them with a crazed look in my eye, highlighted by the shadows casted by the lamp. Or I could spin around slowly on the swivel chair with an extremely expensive cat (or José) in my arms and pet it (or him.)
The best part of the room was the door. Finally, no one would bother me. Only José, Amir and maybe Phil would be allowed into my new groovalicious pad (or whatever it is that the kids are saying these days; I can never keep up.)
On my first day as a businessman with a very important title, I took a long nap.
Then, after work, we all had a party for Valentine’s Day, and the company’s accomplishments or something. The key detail is that there was food. The food, unhappily, got me into a slight amount of trouble.
“What kind of dressing would you like on your salad?” Phil asked me.
“What kind do you have?”
“Russian, French and Italian.”
I frowned. “That’s racist.”
“What’re you talking about?” Phil demanded, confused. “They’re just different types of dressing!”
“But you can’t ask me to choose which one I prefer more! I don’t play favorites with race or salad dressing!”
“But the dressings themselves don’t actually represent the race!” Phil argued.
“So they’re stereotypes!” I concluded, throwing my arms up into the air, although not literally.
Everyone in the office looked extremely disgruntled. I didn’t care. They were all ignorant and unworthy of my time.
That night I skipped over to Dominique’s house with a spring in my step and some new business cards in my pocket. I couldn’t wait to tell Dominique the great news. When I got there, she was waiting for me in a gorgeous pair of violet Carlos Santana pumps. Next to her I looked like Napoleon standing next to the Statue of Liberty.
“I have great news to tell you!” I said whilst jumping up and down like a kangaroo.
“What?”
“Skittles were ten percent off today! José bought me three bags of them!” I squealed as I reached into my pockets and pulled out the fruity candy. A few of my new business cards slipped out with the delicious goodness.
Dominique picked up the cards and asked, “What’re these?”
“Oh, yeah, I got promoted today too,” I shrugged. “New office and whatnot.”
She exclaimed, “That’s absolutely amazing! I never thought you’d get promoted!”
I glared. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”
“I just meant that it is kind of weird for you to get promoted since your name isn’t a pun or anything. It seems like all of your supervisors were blessed with cruel parents who had horrible senses of humor.”
She then baked me some strawberry cupcakes, which made me forget my anger.
“These cupcakes always make me forget my anger,” I said to her.
“I know.” She laughed because I had strawberry frosting on my nose.
My lips contorted themselves into a parabola, and she teased me for frowning.
“Leave Britney alone!” I demanded, referencing an Internet phenomenon and my unrequited love for Britney Spears at the same time.
The next day I strutted into work with an elitist cup of “hot java” pressed to my lips. I couldn’t stand the taste of coffee, so I secretly just had a cold cup of chocolate milk in my hand.
“Sir!” shouted a young person as he briskly approached me. “Your meeting with the movie executives has been changed to before lunch, and it’s at that new restaura--”
“Who are you?!” I barked.
“Your new assistant!” he said as if he was expecting me to cry out in hysteria and confusion, like a young child lost in the park during a baseball game because said young child was terrible at most American sports and only cared for curling, so he got teased for being inadequate, but what the hell did all of the other PBS-loving five-year-olds know?!
Painful memories aside, I now felt elated and the little voice in my head shouted in jubilation. (No wonder I wasn’t married yet.) After months of working at this place, I had finally received, for my personal use, an assistant. This new assistant was young and gorgeous. His light, straight, wispy hair fell into his dark brown eyes. The cobalt shirt that he was sporting looked great with his pale complexion. Urgh, ivory.
“The name’s Christopher,” he said with his soft hand outstretched.
Aha! The handshake. First kinetic impressions were always important. I was prepared to amaze this new kid with my awesome strength. I went to shake his hand and responded with, “I’m going to call you Basil.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said, grasping my hand very tightly, which caused me to nearly let out a girly squeal.
Well, that went horribly wrong.
I was ten minutes early to my meeting at Potemkin Village, so I spent all of that time coloring on one of the menus and completing the fun games.
“Vut did you draw, sir?” inquired the waitress in a sultry Russian accent.
“Armageddon,” responded I without looking up.
“How cute,” she said monotonously whilst ruffling my hair.
How dare she mistake me for a twelve-year-old. She reminded me of that annoying bouncer from Prague! In an attempt to make myself look more mature, I attempted to grow a mustache in three seconds. When that didn’t work, I tried to complete the crossword.
“What’s an eleven-letter word for ‘impossible to avoid?’” I asked the waitress.
“Heyo, it’s Nick!” shouted an unfortunately familiar voice from across the room.
A man and a woman in grey business suits approached me. Although the two business suits which they were wearing were entirely different, they were both equally stylish. I thought we’d only converse over water and saltines, but of course I was wrong. For the next hour, they talked about movies, entertainment, the economy, and Anderson Cooper. I, however, contemplated stabbing myself in the eyeball with my fork, but I couldn’t decide which I eye I wanted to lose. My magazine about the latest fashion trends in piracy hadn’t arrived yet, so I couldn’t make an informed decision. Improperly placed eyepatches always prevent dashing young men like me from developing healthy, loving relationships with women. This meeting was such a waste of time, even though I managed to secure a major ad deal with these two buffoons.
“It was great to see you guys again,” I smiled before we parted ways.
“Here’s your coffee, sir,” Christopher said to me when I got back to the office.
“Thanks, Basil,” I chirped as I grabbed the cup. Then I promptly dropped it into the nearest trashcan. I couldn’t tell Chris that I didn’t drink coffee. He’d think I was a pansy.
Somewhere in the distance I heard a man cry “PC Load Letter?!” but I ignored him. I opened the door to my office and sat in my glorious swivel chair. Oh, the fun I’d have on this piece of furniture. I had also received a new keyboard, so of course I celebrated this moment by rearranging all of the keys on my keyboard to spell out rude words. Hoorah for productivity! Then, for about half an hour, I admired my amazing D&G charcoal suit in the mirror. After a few fierce struts and twirls in the privacy of my office, the amateur modeling got old.
That is when I was hit with the need to bother some of my inferiors, so I went outside. I, to my utmost surprise, collided with José who was standing in front of my door with a bunch of papers clutched to his chest.
“What’s going on?” I asked, oblivious to what was going on.
“We’re having an impromptu meeting. Our ad idea fell apart and we need to come up with something before eight or we’re going to lose a sea of money.”
I turned to slam my head into the wall, but instead my eyes met a motivational poster. Yes! Perhaps this poster would help me keep myself together.
“FAILURE: What your mother’s birth control experienced nine months before you were born.”
I saw the beige walls closing in on me, and in a moment of terrifying hysteria, I gasped audibly for oxygen whilst clutching my throat.
Suddenly, thousands of pieces of paper were thrown into the air and gliding downwards violently. I felt another pair of lips attach themselves forcefully to mine and found myself inhaling José’s delicious Paul Smith Extreme.
It took me five minutes to recuperate from this horrific incident, and I made José elucidate everything to me in explicit detail.
“Well, you were acting like a cat that was about to be thrown into the Black Sea, so I figured I’d help you out by breathing a little life into you,” he explained matter-of-factly.
Before I could ask him anymore questions, my assistant strutted over, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into the conference room. I spent the next hours groaning, panicking about my future, and attempting to fix my hair clandestinely. (Hmm, sounds a bit like my accidental vacation in Vancouver.) Thankfully, at the last moment, Amir came up with an idea for an ad that saved all of our jobs. It involved an annoying jingle and an awkward sexual innuendo, which nowadays seems to be a requirement for most successful ads.
I slowly exhaled a sigh of relief and sped back to Dominique’s place on my Segway. The cold air froze my untidy hair, and I knew that Dominique would be furious when I got home because she hated my Segway.
To quote the immortal catchphrase of trendy girls from the 90s: “Whatever.”
I pulled into the driveway of her home and let myself into the mansion.
“And where have you been?” she nagged.
“Working.”
“You’re always working.”
“There’s always work to be done.”
I dove into the couch, hoping it’d engulf me and take me to a world of unicorns and dust bunnies. Instead, I was still stuck listening to Dominique.
“Maybe you should take a week off or something. I was thinking that maybe we could go on vacation to-.”
“No.” I rolled over and hung upside down in an attempt to find the remote control from underneath the leather couch. Perhaps Dominique had an ‘off’ button.
“You can afford to miss a few days of work! You never spend any time with me!”
I stretched myself across the couch and realized that was true.
“This is true,” I conceded whilst stifling a yawn.
She frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “What do you even do for a living?”
“I’m a deipnosophist,” I managed to mumble before dozing off.
I awoke to extremely high-pitched screaming the next morning. I thought it was Dominique, but then I realized that it was just one of the ladies from The View, since the television had been turned on. When my vision finally cleared, I realized that the screamer was actually Regis Philbin. What a strange event to wake up to.
“Nick, get up!” my girlfriend commanded. “We’re going to an art museum.”
How horrid.
“I don’t believe in art!” I shouted with my head under a pillow. It came out sounding a bit like “I dunf bloof inrt.”
“I don’t care!” she snapped.
“No one ever cares!” I pretended to sob into the pillow.
We took my Phantom to the art museum, which was a horrendous waste of time. I could’ve been making money, but instead I was stuck staring at a painting of water lilies that looked more like massive globs of color. What trash.
In an effort to entertain myself, I decided to mock everyone around me.
“That painting is quite fabulous,” said a portly man in his fifties. He was looking at Jack Vettriano’s “The Philosophers.”
“Mhm, indeed,” I chimed in whilst adopting a false English accent.
“Oh, I agree with your comment completely,” said a woman with outstanding hair. “I love how warm the colors are.”
“And the soft texture of the clouds.”
A strong urge to ingest lead-based paint consumed me.
“What the hell are you two on about?” I spat. “There’s more to this painting than soft clouds and warm colors. What about the conflicting image of restraint and freedom? Individuality and conformity? Clearly there is an existential undertone to this painting that references the Yuppie subculture of the 1980s.”
“How intriguing,” Mr. Portly chortled.
“Hmm, this man is slowly becoming my favorite artist,” Mrs. Outstanding said.
I blinked, dumbfounded. “What’re you, a misogynist? Most of this man’s work is crude, commercial, sexist, and devoid of meaning. If you want to see real art, take a look at this building. Considering how architecturally conservative the other buildings around it are, this museum is a spark of modern ingenuity, although I understand how it gets overlooked since it is surrounded by so ma-.”
Dominique roughly grabbed me by my biceps and led me out of the museum. Thank the lord.
“Why do you always have to embarrass me out in public?”
“Why must you always make me go out in public? You know I enjoy being a pariah,” I frowned.
“No one asked you to interact with anyone,” she said with the attitude of a teen girl.
“My therapist did,” I responded, suddenly remembering him. “He’s afraid I’ll start talking to myself again.”
“I don’t think I can see you anymore,” we both said at the same time, surprisingly.
The slight discrepancy was in that she was referring to our romantic relationship, while I was referring to my eyesight since I had just donned my new Versace sunglasses. Nevertheless, we decided then to part ways. I would return to my humble abode to do some laundry, and she would use her amazing legs to stride back to her mansion.
... Damn.
“WAIT!” I shrieked as I ran after Dominique, who was only about three feet ahead of me. “You used to love my ridiculously awkward comments!”
“It’s impossible to sustain a proper, serious conversation with you.”
“Let’s discuss relations between Russia and Canada right now!” I implored.
“Nobody cares about that! Just like how nobody cares about your job!”
“Why is my work such a problem? Don’t you have to travel all over the world for your job?”
“Well, yeah, but not anymore.”
“Why?”
“I’m on maternity leave.”
I felt like I had just been hit in the stomach with a Maxim gun.
“...WHAT?!”
“Don’t worry; it’s not yours.”
This time I felt like she had just thrown an elephant at me.
“WHAAAAT?!”
She led me into a hipster café and tried to explain that she was carrying the baby for her two male homosexual friends, but my brain refused to comprehend anything.
“So you’re gay but you’re pregnant?”
“No. I’m carrying the baby for my gay friend.”
“You’re having a gay baby?”
“No. My friend is gay, so he and his partner-”
“Wait, your friend is gay?”
She rolled her eyes, got up, and left me sitting at the table with a cold cup of chocolate milk in front of me. Tonight I’d be drinking away my troubles with the Nesquik bunny.