Memo to the powers that be who run this loathsome mold pit in the Vampire State's bougiest town.

 

​To:  Personnel Department

From: Akaky

Subject: Your suggestion that I do work related stuff on 26 July this year.

 

 No. Not just no, but hell no! I am ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NO TWO DAMN WAYS ABOUT IT NOT going to be available for anything work-related on Sunday, July 26 of this year. I will be in New Jersey attending my step-niece's (assuming that being a step-niece is an actual thing and not a ploy by the wedding industry to expand the number of people whose weddings I must attend) and not celebrating my birthday. Carly can do what she wants in New Jersey on my birthday; she's a big girl now and if she wants to spend the weekend getting married then more power to her, although I don't understand why anyone would choose to do anything in New Jersey, but that's on me. Frankly, and this is also something that is just on me, while I think Mel is a very nice guy, no two ways about it, she could have done a lot better, even in New Jersey. Just my opinion, you understand. No disrespect intended. Like I said, Mel is a very nice guy, but Carly is a deeply attractive young woman and Mel is a deeply…well, he is a very nice guy.

 Be that as it may, my uncle Peter chose to die and be buried in New Jersey, for example, but I ascribe that choice to propinquity—he was already in New Jersey when he died and the cost of shipping him home to Ireland so he could rest with his people was beyond whatever counted as prohibitively expensive at the time. What I really do not understand is why he would choose to be buried behind a McDonald's franchise. This could be a case of extreme brand loyalty; Uncle Peter was very fond of the Filet—o—Fish sandwich, or so people tell me—but whatever the reason, the idea of a cemetery directly behind a McDonald's is somewhat disquieting on a number of different levels, the first of which is that it makes me wonder just what that particular McDonald’s is putting in their Quarter Pounders with cheese.  I do not want to go there; the gag factor is the gag factor, after all; but it really does make you think, doesn’t it, and not in a good way.

 

Almost there.

 So here we are, the Inglorious Ninth of June, wherein I celebrate the 39th anniversary of my employment here at the egregious mold-pit wherein I labor for my daily bread. Next year there will be parties and perhaps an interview with the local media, although I wouldn't bet on it, and I will no doubt go home afterwards and weep into my pillow at the waste I have made of my life.  But as I said, that is next year. This year, I can only contemplate the noisome mess that I will be in one year and wonder how the hell I got myself into this situation.  I didn't want to be a minor bureaucrat; I wanted to play center field for the New York Yankees, a common life fantasy in these parts and one that I could never realize given my complete inability to hit a curve ball. How swiftly was ambition crushed, my life torn from its preordained path and sent down the loathsome path to the lower depths of the bureaucracy! How wretched are the cruel twists of fate that lead some to the pinnacles of glory and others to the soul-sucking monotony of life in triplicate!  Life is not fair, which what I will be annoying everyone I know with for the next year. By the time the 40th anniversary rolls around I am sure that everyone will be sick and tired of listening to me and will be conspiring to hit me over the head with a shovel and selling my carcass at the weekly farmers' market for meat. I have great things to look forward to this year.