By Jade Hays
June
16th, 2003
The screwed-up economy gave
me an opportunity to go back to grad school. I can't complain. Academia
is a great place to get lost in for a while. Armed with a lumbar whacking
backpack and coffee stained teeth, I squandered a year putting a major
dent in the intellectual tin-can of my time while student loans pile
up like buffalo wings at a Super Bowl party. The odd schedule is great.
Sometimes before class I sit in a vacant lecture room and read an assignment
for a second or third time, periodically glancing up at the television
gathering dust in the corner which I imagine will not be playing Star
Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn. Yep, got the whole university to myself.
I am feeling rather clever at the moment. Did you know that periods
go outside of quotation marks for Brits and for American writers they
go inside? See what I mean? Major knowledge powerhouse.
Unfortunately, the semester
is ending and I desperately need a job. I desperately needed a job a
year ago before starting school. And look, the economy is still screwed.
To put it another way, my economy is still screwed. I need to put these
hot brains to work. I'm a fire looking for a stick of wood. But there
is no forest of jobs to clear-cut anymore. My flame is smoldering to
an ember, my ember to a spark, my spark drowns in a cup of bad coffee
responsible for my upside down smile. Poof, there it goes!
So I have this idea that
was inspired by "The Internet." I get these headline emails from an
online news service: "Powell Denounces Iraq" or "Congressman Denounces
Potato Chips" or "Bush Denounces Jihad" or "Skateboards Denounce SUVs."
And so I am thinking about what these headlines have in common, what
do they mean? I'm no slacker. After a few minutes I figure it all out.
These important people are disappointed. They are unhappy about something.
Bam! Then came my money idea. What the world needs more than anything
is a consolidator of complaints: a full-time Denouncer.
Needless to say, I am overqualified
for the position of Denouncer. Part of my academic breeding is to be
critical of things. For example, I can tell you almost immediately if
I don't like something. In my experience, most of my complaints revolve
around the concept of employment. That should be less of a distraction
once I secure my new occupation. My idea is that successful people should
hire me to do all their denouncing chores. Why should these important
folk waste precious time denouncing things, when I can do it for them?
I once calculated that Michael
Eisner, CEO of Disney Corporation, made more money in one hour than
I did in two months. How could a man like that afford to squander his
valuable time denouncing? It's plain and simple math. I can't believe
someone hasn't thought of this before me (apparently somebody around
here is not short on great ideas!) I haven't worked out the details,
but it looks like I'll need a cell phone, probably a fax machine, and
definitely, definitely an email address. Here's how I envision a typical
denouncing day:
An important person, say
Jennifer Garner, calls me. She's real cool, so she'd say something like,
"What's shaking, you bald, sexy freakazoid!" And I would catch that
sexy momma's vibe and go, "Hey hot mama! I'm just sittin' around waiting
to put the funk on the world! Denounce away sugar-sweet!" See, we'd
be on real familiar working terms. From the outside it might appear
as a surprisingly close relationship. Her most common complaint would
be the line of perverts parked outside her bedroom window at all hours.
The first thing I would do (after my morning coffee, of course!) is
start denouncing the bejesus out of these whackos. I'd keep up denouncing
all day long until my fingers got tired of typing, the email it off
to the wires. Jennifer would always be first in line, but eventually
I would find time for George W., then I'd get to Colin Powell's tart
denouncements (Iraq again!) then all the other really hot movie stars,
and so on, and so forth. Every couple weeks I cash a fat paycheck. Bam!
It's been awhile since I've
been "on the streets" but I wager there are a hell of a lot of pissed-off
people out there looking for work. All this economy stuff is really
clogging up the morning edition. I don't get it. It's almost like they've
lost track of the really important people. I'll have you know, amigos,
there are upset humans out there that make a hell of a lot more money
than you do. Do the big shots have time to waste denouncing? With me
around, I should think not.
