The prison work camp has become a giant ball of hate, lately.
I'm not sure where it all stems from - anger is like the Clap, it just takes one VD host to infect the rest of its partners - but the stink-eyes range from the young (dumb, and full of cum) prisoners, us grizzled-vet prisoners, the Camera Geeks and the guards. You look someone in the eye and you'll get shived in the arm pit. And don't even think about engaging someone in conversation, that will land you face down in an ink drum while Bubba the Pressroom Whore's makes you his play thing.
Usually, the epicenter of hostility sits on a small patch of carpet that separates the young pups who have to deal with the public - old folks angry that last night's early bird dinner didn't come with the mashed peas they had a hankering for - and us steely-eyed, honery cusses who react to our phone ringing like someone was pissing in our eye sockets. They're fish hacks (newspapers are used to wrap fish at the market - hence fish hacks). We're editing monkeys, because in their eyes, any chimp can do our job (they may have a point). Slap an objectionable headline on a story and there'll be a pit viper curled up in your top desk drawer the next morning. Type "first ever" in a story and we'll hog tie the offending writer and pour fire ants in their ears. War is ugly. You gotta do what you gotta do to save your nuts.
We're the Jets and the Sharks, the Hatfield and McCoys, Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, of the prison work camp world.
However, that anger is now being spread to the Camera Geeks and, of course, the guards. The CGs are up in arms too, threatening to flash everyone in the prison work camp (not that kind of flash - with their cameras!), leaving us all blind and unable to look at the circa 1970 porn pics we get via e-mail from readers. And I'm afraid, since the two factions - the CGs and the fish hacks are out in the fields, together, they'll band together and we'll be in the riot mode at the camp. They can mobilize and strategize better, too. They all wield cell phones while us monkeys can't spell cellular phone let alone used one of those funky contraptions. Gell pens and 400mm camera lenses will be brandished. The only plus is that we nearly have the numbers, so it might be a fair fight. Unfortunately, the only weapon the monkeys have is sheets of 11x14 paper, which can leave a mean paper cut but the chances of maiming a rabid fish hack hopped up on Full Throttle energy drink and asthma pills (not because they are lungers, the pills are like speed it keeps them up and hyperactive).
I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I'm drafted into a war I have no interest in fighting. I just want to sit at my desk, eat my BBQ Cornuts and fret over why my fantasy football team (the one I shelled out the freeloader's college fund to join) can't get over the hump. Oh, and maybe read a letter to the editor or two from the nut jobs who live in my community and drive on the same streets I travel on. Maybe I'll head to Canada, or perhaps Cabo San Lucas to work on my tan. Canada or Cabo? Cabo or Canada?
Does it really matter, dude? Either place almost guarantees you won't get shivved in the left testicle (Lenny - my favorite) by a blue gel pen.
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3 comments:
Hey mouth breating ape.
Just think one of the fish hacks sits catycorner to you and with any luck could McGyver a gun out of a gel pen, a paper clip and a penny. Watchout the revolt is going to happen.
I had no idea that your office was so violently dangerous.
I mean, I know you have to eat the donuts or bagels I occasionally deliver in the parking lot (crouched on the floor of the passenger seat of my car) because you're afraid you'll get jumped if you enter the office carrying your coffee and something covered in sugar or smothered in cream cheese.
And I do get that.
You're in a newsroom and those things are your currency. (After all, you had to blame that powdered sugar on your lip that one morning as a sloppy crumb kiss from me to escape with your life.)
But really, gel pens are a threat to you?
Don't you have a cup of red lead editing pencils nearby for protection while you slice and dice the reporters' "First Annuals" or whatever?
Maybe you can line your desk with sharpened red pencils like Jim did with Dwight that day on The Office? I realize it's a hazard for the innocent bystander...someone might trip near your desk and lose an eye, but at least the reporters will know you're armed and ready for battle if need be.
Do the reporters really have an ax to grind with the editors? I thought they just rolled their eyes and thought you alls were morons.
Speaking of which if you're both an editor and a reporter should that be cause for some inner strife?
And lets be honest the annimosity has nothing to do with reporter vs. editor or editor vs. photographers it's newsroom vs. innept management which is the main event.
All the rest are silly under cards or things MTV would have put together for their claymation boxing matches.
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