Internal Combustion

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Sir,” says the disinterested woman. “You quit your last job and have excellent references.”

"Yes," I agree.

She pulls her glasses down to the tip of her nose. “You should just consider getting a job. I have serious doubts applying for Unemployment will get you anywhere at all.”

“Yeah I know,” I explain. “It’s more of a tradition when I’m not working to look for free money. It's like getting popcorn at the movies. Or eating nothing but baked beans for the week before you take a trip on an airplane.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everybody eats popcorn at movies,” I explain.

“No,” says the woman. “I mean about the airplanes.”

“Ah god airline travel is horrible,” I says. “Do you realize that you’re enclosed in an airtight tube with a bunch of other people greedily suckin up all your oxygen with giant flarin hippopotamus nostrils? A week’s worth of baked beans can extend your life a full seventeen minutes.”

“Huh,” says the woman, now intrigued. “I’ll bet your flights arrive on time too.”

“If not early,” I agree. “Sure there’s a lot of complaining at the time. But in retrospect I’ll bet all those other passengers would thank me.”

“Couldn’t the release of, eh,” the woman pauses, “'noxious gasses' on an airplane be considered a terrorist act?”

“It could,” I agree. “But so could all the other passengers, depleting the oxygen and by virtue of respiration replacing it with carbon monoxide. Nobody breathes carbon monoxide except maybe plants and people from Detroit. And the Detroit Lions are 0-and-5.”

“0-and-5?” she replies. “Wow. That should make you want to suck some carbon monixide for sure.”

“Detroitians just scurry along quietly on to Vegas or Florida or whatever," I says wiggling my fingers in the air, "replacing all the oxygen in their wake, just like God intended.”

"The quality of air in Detroit must be fantastic," she observes. "You've been playing a lot of Spore, haven't you?"

"Yep," I nod. "And seventeen minutes is seventeen minutes."

“Well, says the woman, affixing a big red stamp on my file, "I can't give you Unemployment, but we can assist with job placement. Have you ever considered working for the Fox News Channel?”

“Meh,” I says. “I was hoping for a cruise gig managing an Applebee's or something.”