Obama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This

Predator Press


[LOBO]

“For a guy that got the job,” says Barbarossa, “you sure don’t look very happy about it.”

“Nah I’m fine,” I says, checking my mirrors. “It‘s just weird. Nobody has passed that test in 30 years. Doctor Yakamoto died in 2006. So everybody has gotta pull on my hair to see if it’s a wig.”

“So it’s the Spanish Fly Industrial Complex, huh? What do they make?”

Watching the road, I didn’t realize he wasn’t kidding.

“Spanish Fly,” I say finally, migraine already creeping in.

“Wow,” says Barbarossa, staring vacantly into the rolling scenery. “Do the Japanese make American ones too? Or are those shipped to Japan? And who makes the flies for the Spaniards?”

Idiot.

“Spanish Fly is a drink that supposedly makes women, ah, amorous.”

“Will it work on Agatha?”

I stare. “No. You should stick to something traditional like Wild Turkey.”

“But that’s because you think Agatha is a guy. And if Agatha is a guy, I would be gay. And I’m not gay.”

“Have you had sex yet?”

“Not in the traditional sense,” he explains. “She’s saving herself for marriage.”

I scowl as all the car's cylinders rise willingly to the sudden burst of speed request at my toe. “Barbarossa, if you say one more goddamn thing I’ll jump the median and kill us both.”

He's like having a conversation with a rock that has learning disabilities. And true to form, he get a few miles before he forgets.

“They’re gonna miss you at the warehouse,” he says.

“Yeah,” I sigh happily, relaxing my toe. “And I wanted to talk about that. You’ll probably end up with my old job if you play your cards right.”

“I’ll have to if me and Agatha are going to raise a family.”

Picking my battles, I let that slide. Rubbing my chin, I choose words carefully. “A car, good job, steady,” I wince painfully. “-girlfriend," I blurt. “You’ve come a long way. “And I’m proud of you. Sort of. I’m taking you off of Probation.”

“Fucking awesome,” he beams. “Hey. Will you tell me what that big red button you threatened me with did?”

“It wasn’t hooked up to anything,” I confess nervously. “It didn’t need to be. Your imagination was infinitely worse than any nightmarish device I could devise.”

“I’ll say,” Barbarossa agrees, eyebrows arched high. “I started wetting the bed last September.” Still staring at the scenery, he adds, “How come we don’t put Spanish Fly in the water supply? We would probably get medals or something.”

“I’m way ahead of you,” I says, scowling. “It turns out Spanish Fly doesn’t work. All it probably does is give a guy some confidence.”

Barbarossa nods slowly. “But what if he’s an asshole?”

“Well, let’s face it,” I says, turning down Barbarossa’s street. “The guy who is going to slip this into someone’s drink for sex is a moral level of scumbag just inches from using roofies or whatever in the first place.”

“Do you get an employee discount?”

“Hell yeah,” I grin. “40 percent off!”

Reversing the Mayan Prophecy One Day at a Time

This is me in the picture.  Probably.

Predator Press

[LOBO]

For an additional $6.85 a week (after taxes), I am now officially in charge of Barbarossa -the closest approximation to a friend I have- and his girlfriend Agatha, who I strongly suspect is a transsexual.

The toothy boss-guy gripping my paw painfully gushes, "I think we've overlooked your rare qualifications long enough."

"I agree whoreheartedly" I reply, shaking back in a sincere and enthusiastic manner. "How soon can I fire people?"

Pthbbbt ... Stupid Mayans.

LOBO's Discourse on "The Nature of Reality." Yes, there's a Quiz.

Predator Press


[LOBO]

As the economy slowly recovers, overqualified people compete for grunt work.

(-I imagine you’ll hear a lot more stories like this in the near future.)

But one of my squad is getting a promotion.

And it might be me.



***
It took a lot of effort and misdirection to get to the Battery Room earliest this morning, but I had completely forgotten I reset the entire battery bay the night before. Personally. While I was expecting only one charged unit left, there was a full array of “juice” for all the walkie-talkies.

Still, the morning meeting wasn’t for another twelve minutes. I let the door close behind me and basked in the restorative quiet, slipping into the deskless swivel chair for a contemplative moment.

"Honey. we can't see each other anymore.
-It's not you, it's me."

Absently doing the well-practiced battery swap, I ponder having forgotten I set them up yesterday. Indeed I now remember explicitly doing it. But I could have walked in on a single battery today, and never given it another thought. The good ole sterile, irrefutable, mathematical Universe confounded its favorite Existentialist again with a potent dose of non-subjective Reality -alas only demonstrating my full embrace of the lens from which I choose to view it.

The “promotion” is nigh inconsequential, and hardly warranting attention. Paywise, it is about a quarter an hour -$10 a week. Before taxes.

And I am apparently competing with the rest of my “squad,” Barbarossa and Agatha –both of whom burst suddenly into the room, startling me slightly, and apparently discussing the same subject.

“It’s not worth it,” explains Agatha. She greets me with a dismissive wave, engrossed in conversation with Barbarossa. “It just makes people complain to you more. And that’s all people do around here is complain.”

The fact that Agatha is ironically complaining hasn’t escaped me, but I got lost in thought about Agatha's hands.

I don’t think "Agatha" is a woman.

***

See you can tell a lot about people by their hands. Their real age. Their occupation.

Their sex.

It beats that “Adam’s apple” crap all to hell. You can have the Adam’s apple surgically altered. But to my knowledge there’s no plastic surgery for hands -and could you imagine the expense? Thus, I suspect this large-handed, sometimes flat chested, six foot two, athletically-built, redhead-sporting-rare-patches-of-unfreckled-flesh “woman” -who personally chose the name “Agatha” BTW, and visibly smolders about all the above- is competition for this dubious honor with me.

In any case, she will kick ass on our softball team. Barbarossa, on the other hand, is of little concern. His eyes are black and swollen from sleepless exhaustion. And his hands shake from nervous anxiety. Addled. He really, really looks like he could use some pot to relax. But remember he thinks I am his probation officer for some reason, and I promptly dispose of unprocessed piss tests of his on a weekly basis like clockwork.

 -I can't let him cloud his judgment now, potentially on the cusp of a potentially huge career move for him, can I?

As a Professional, I would prefer Barbarossa seek out the Universe's source of his issues -like the fact that someone using a surreptitiously-made car key has been sneaking out of the morning meeting and parking his car someplace different, adjusting his seats, reprogramming his radio stations and, yes, occasionally slightly deflating a random tire here and there.

I only know this because I have been paying Agatha twenty bucks a week to do it for over a month now.

And with Barbarossa out of the running, I’ll just point out the parking lot security tape of Agatha doing it.

But then I noticed something else disturbing about Agatha's hands.

-Barbarossa was holding one of them.

I think I screamed.