| March 10, 2003 |
Nevertheless, I know. I know, I know, I know. It has been far too many moons since I last bothered to pay heed to your wishes for a new issue, and these all too familiar lapses are beginning to try the patience of my most devoted readers, I am well aware. I lop off my pinkie finger in a ritualistic acknowledgement of shame. I use a dull, dirty blade, and cut in a slow sawing motion to heighten the soul cleansing agony. There, it is done. Now hand me a towel. It’s time for more pressing matters.
Another year has arrived, and with it an entirely new breed of locusts have descended upon my metaphorical multi-level palm frond roofed abode. For you see, the orangutans and chimpanzees I have hired to administer to my various wants and needs have determined they are due a review. Yes, a review. A process from which I thought I had long ago divorced myself and the mere mention of which sends shivers of dread shooting through my spine like so many improperly applied bloodletting leaches.
You must understand, personal interactive with underlings is not one of my qualified strengths, and the various pills, capsules and liquors which I must imbibe to maintain any sense of sanity surely do not help the situation. This I admit. But as the field mice and iguanas have yet to acquire the skills to reasonably take the place of even the most sloth-like of my primate technical assistants, I felt it was in my best interests to at least humor their request.
Alas, I was mistaken.
No sooner had I allowed myself to enter into the process proper by shuffling pages and offering a few gestures of hollow praise for their past efforts, than I was met with a veritable laundry lists of requests and demands. This was no review, it was blackmail, pure and simple. I reminded these misguided beasts that the adequate service they provided was merely what they where already being somewhat handsomely paid to deliver. But no dice. The natives are restless and demand satisfaction, my previous generosities be damned.
The ransom list they brought forth was boggling, even to those less addled as myself. Substantially higher pay. Promotions across the board. Lice-free living quarters. A brood of less gamey mating partners. Access to my forbidden cabinets of non-prescribed medicinals. Not to mention more free time for personal nit picking and self-gratification. Greed, you are a furry, bucktoothed beast indeed.
Were I able, I would respond to these requests in much same manner to which I have dealt with other associates and employees who found themselves on my dark side– by surreptitiously selling them to a local merchant of labor and casting them into a pit of indeterminable woe and hardship for the rest of their days, few as there may be. But unfortunately, I need their particular expertise to keep this enterprise viable (be that what it is,) and my living quarters reasonably sanitary. Good help is hard to find, and I am afraid at this time, they hold the ace to my mere three of spades. C. Heston was all too correct. Damn, dirty apes.
Meeting their larcenous requirements, however, will not be so simple, as the times have not been kind to my once vast fortunes. It seems scandalous accounting practices do not respect the sanctity of jungle retreats, and the coffers have apparently been drained by investments which would have had disbarred Andersen bean-counters scratching their bald, comb-over capped heads in disbelief, and gambling losses which I can only vaguely recall (suffice it to say calculating exchange rates between the American dollar and the Peso Boliviano while in the midst of a questionably regulated backwoods baccarat game is not to be recommended.)
And so, I find myself at an economic crossroads manned by dark Scratch himself. Perhaps I will once again whore my quickly diminishing wordsmithing skills out to those in need of an experienced hand. It has worked in the past though I hear the talent pool is currently deeper than the great Salt Lake. Perhaps a few advertisements within the body of this publication, judiciously placed, will till the soil as needed. Perhaps the ladies at a local gentleman’s club will graciously place an order for a gross of our popular scanty undergarments, which have proven to be quite profitable indeed. We will see.
But for now, nightfall has arrived and a tumbler of sweet chimp-made bourbon is beckoning. I will deal with my demons further when I am of sounder mind.
—The Editor
