Boy are you guys lucky that I am writing my column today. Because, had I written it yesterday, it would have had to go with two warning notes. One for you, the general public — “Caution: Decibel level beyond recommended levels of safety. Column may cause permanent damage to eardrums.” And the other for Ye Ed — “Caution: Column may cause permanent damage to life (yours).”
But do not worry. You can all — even Ye Ed — put your patented nuclear holocaust survival suits by for another occasion, because the danger has passed.
Unlike the way I felt yesterday, today I am no longer gazing at the world through such contemptuous and cynical eyes that even a website like despair.com, which specialises in the relentless pursuit of dejection and sells products like The Pessimist’s Mug (featuring the statement “this glass is now half empty”) would hesitate to recruit me.
Nor am I falling into the monitor of my computer, mugging up the words to the end of the world curse as found on chickenhead.com, because unlike a certain person who resides in a certain white mansion-type house in the North American continent — a person who has the full and unstinted support of Ye Ed, which explains why I think Ye Ed deserves a punch on the nose every now and then — I am in no position to rush off and bomb everything that annoys me whenever I feel like it.
And finally, I am not hunched over my keyboard, muttering darkly to myself and inserting well-chosen words into the hate mail generator at www.porkjerky.com/ hatemail.php, while simultaneously putting my two-pice bits into the resignation letter generator at www.esquire.com/humor/tools (though I must say, I still rather like the way the letter ended - “P.S. See you in maximum security. Also: up yours!”). Instead, I am sitting at my desk with a smile on my face and a song on my lips, writing a column that, astoundingly, is not filled with bad language in several languages.
{{/usCountry}}And finally, I am not hunched over my keyboard, muttering darkly to myself and inserting well-chosen words into the hate mail generator at www.porkjerky.com/ hatemail.php, while simultaneously putting my two-pice bits into the resignation letter generator at www.esquire.com/humor/tools (though I must say, I still rather like the way the letter ended - “P.S. See you in maximum security. Also: up yours!”). Instead, I am sitting at my desk with a smile on my face and a song on my lips, writing a column that, astoundingly, is not filled with bad language in several languages.
{{/usCountry}}No. Unlike the column I might have written yesterday, what you will get today will not be yet another rant about famous people and their incredible lack of ability to answer their phones.
Though if you will permit me one paragraph to be ever so slightly acerbic, I would like to point those famous people to a certain article on www.ehow.com, a site that offers step-by-step guides to everything from fixing a washing machine to faking knowledge of wine.
The article that I think famous people will learn much from is called ‘How to Answer the Phone’, and includes, as Step 3 of its guide, the sentence “Be polite and responsive, giving the caller your full attention.”
The ever so slight acerbity now done with, I will tell you what caused such a drastic difference in my mood.
It was a website I discovered as I surfed the Net for this column between the hate mail I wrote to famous people, the resignation letter I wrote to the boss-types explaining why I think a job in bomb disposal is less stressful than journalism, and the phone calls I made that never got an answer.
This website is just perfect for a person like me, someone whose career depends on the whims of famous people.
It is called www.subservientdonald.com and it allows you to command Donald Trump to stand, sit, jump, dance, sing, and — the one I like best — beg. Of course, there are other similar sites — www.subservientchicken.com springs to mind, and www.idodogtricks.com — but I rather love the idea of having a multi-millionaire do exactly what I tell him to do. Things like that happen so rarely to poverty-stricken journalists.