Hello, this is Jeff typing, and I have an unfortunate announcement to make.  A few days ago Metten and I acknowledged the 350 lb mama’s boy in the room, and finally had a conversation about the future of this website.

And we’ve decided to take it down.

This is something that makes me sad, because it’s been a lot of fun.  We’ve been at it for roughly a year, and, at the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, there’s some really funny shit posted here.

But, for whatever reason (needless to say, I blame myself), Mockable never attracted a large audience.  At one point there were roughly 500 visitors per day, which ain’t too shabby, but it’s decreased over the past few months.  Not a good sign.

When I came up with the idea for the site, I envisioned it as a depository for comic bitching about the little everyday things that irritate us.  I thought we’d get to the point where Mockable pretty much ran on autopilot, as readers provided the content.

Indeed, we received a lot of great submissions, and I thank everyone who participated.  You guys are awesome!  But the large, vibrant community I imagined never gathered.  Again, I take the blame.

I want to thank everyone who visited the site on a regular basis (both of you), everybody who submitted a guest Mock, and especially Metten.

Over the years I’ve attempted to collaborate on various projects with people, and it hasn’t gone well.  There’s usually a disparity in passion, if you know what I mean.  One of us is more committed than the other, and it leads to hard feelings and the wheels quickly flying off the project.

But Metten has been committed throughout.  In fact, he’s largely responsible for keeping the site operational over the past few months.  At the end I was posting fiction one day a week.  WTF?

So, anyway.  Thanks for everything.  And you haven’t heard the last of the Metten/Kay collaborations.  This one didn’t work, but the next one will.  I’m convinced of it.

Metten might want to post a goodbye, as well.  Or maybe he’ll let this one speak for both us.  I don’t know.  But we’re going to leave the site as it is for a week or so, then remove everything but our farewells.  We agree that Mockable shouldn’t just sit here dormant and sad and flaccid.

So, if you’re interested, revisit the archives while you can.  And we’ll see you guys elsewhere, real soon.

Thank you!

Someone asked for a health update – and since I’m in a considerable amount of trouble at work and school, and can’t really be funny at the moment, I’ll try to quickly oblige.  The official diagnosis was sarcoidosis – which is a kinda rare disease that manifests itself predominantly in dark-skinned Mediterranean people and me.  Nobody knows what causes it and there are generally three ways to make it go away – do nothing, steroids or surgery.  My pulmonologist went with steroids.

I’ve been on them since last December and here are the three things I know about steriods:

1) I’ve gained 25 pounds – I can no longer put on my socks without holding my breath.  My pants are holding on for dear life and my body has taken on a new, decidedly undesirable shape.

2) My face is all puffy and I’m getting zits.  I look like an actor in a fat suit.  Think Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. What?  Shut up – that movie kicks ass.

3) Every day is a challenge to keep from murdering someone with a ball point pen. They walk into the office and say, “Good morning, sir.”  And for no discernible reason, my mental response is, “FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!!  I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”    The same goes for all of my other interactions in life.  If you guys knew what I did for a living, and all the stressful situations that come with the job – you’d be amazed that I’m not on death row right now.  Seriously,  I nearly slaughtered a youth soccer team for allowing an ugly little girl to play on their team.  Goddamn that little girl was ugly!  I’m getting used to it, and I’m getting better…but Jeebus!  This world would be a better place if most of you were dead.

So anyway, I take drugs and go in for a $2500 CAT scan every three months.  Then the doctor says nothing’s changed and I have to bite my lip to keep from killing him with my bare hands.  But hey – At least it’s not penis cancer, right?

Unless for some reason you guys really care, this will probably the last you hear on the subject.

Dear Dumbass,

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s day.  A magical day where everyone’s a little of the worst part of a stereotypical Irishman. Because some guy allegedly drove some snakes from some Island to somewhere else, we are given license to drink a German beverage and talk like a leprechaun until we vomit green bile on someone that isn’t our husband/wife. We get to stumble around and make inappropriate suggestions to members of the opposite sex and act like a total piece of shit without having to endure an intervention and (most of the time) nobody even calls the cops.  It’s truly a beautiful phenomenon.  The only better holidays are the Super Bowl and Cinco de Mayo because we get to be equally retarded (that’s right, I said it – one’s brain functions are in a state of retardation) without all the preachiness of the religious people who think this is an excellent “teachable moment”.  Yes, we understand the irony of wallowing in sin as we celebrate the deeds of a saint…or at least we did up until all but our essential brain functions shut off (by the way, it appears that one’s bladder isn’t really all that essential – I’ll clean that up in the morning…or maybe the afternoon) now shut the fuck up.

Quick tangent – Right now some of my best work is in the field of Facebook comments…check out this little gem I just posted – “So I’m hanging out drinking with Bignar (ed – Bignar is John Bignar, a guy I went to high school with), and he’s had 8 beers. I don’t know if you know this, but Bignar drives a Ford Escort. He finally decides that he wants to get a bunch of girls from the service (an escort, if you will) and drive her around in his car. So he’s driving around with escorts in his Escort. He finally has that 9th beer and he starts flailing and blindly throwing punches in every direction. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a carload of escorts fleeing an Escort. It was some fucking night…” So anyway…there’s more where that came from, so go be my facebook pal or whatever…

Everything about this most holy day is beautiful…except for one thing – people like you.  You stare at me with a condescending eye as I sway back and forth like Muhammad Ali on a boat.  You point at me as you lean over to your other soapboxing friend and say, “That’s why I hate St. Patrick’s day.  All the goddamned drunks.”  On behalf of all the slobbering neanderthal perverts like me – go fuck yourself.  Going out on St. Patrick’s day and complaining about the drunks is like going to a NASCAR race and complaining about all the cars.  To borrow heavily from Mikey of the Goonies:

The next time we see sky it’ll be over a different day – a day wrought with responsibilities and sadness. The next time you sit down, it’ll be at a desk in front of a computer rather than 5 feet from two hot girls who are ten years my junior, drunkenly grinding on one another as though they are attempting to start a survival fire through the power of groin friction. That middle-aged woman and her friend over there who keep glaring at our table, they want the bestest stuff for society.  And most of the time we’re willing to provide that for ‘em.    ‘Cause most of the time it’s her time. Her time, up there. Down here it’s our time. It’s our time down here in the public urination and debauchery.  Our time to kill the brain cells that remind us of the meaninglessness of existence.  Our time to vomit on the stage while singing “You’re So Vain” on the Karaoke machine.  It’s our time goddamnit so for once in your life would you shut up and let us be drunk and stupid for at least three nights a year?  We’ve earned it – and besides this is our biblical right as sanctioned by the catholic church. That’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket.

Wow.  I’ve motivated myself.  Despite the fact that it’s 8:30 in the morning on the day after St. Patrick’s day, I think I might take the day off and go out drinking and get in a fight with someone smaller than me…and of the opposite sex.  So to wrap up, please leave us ridiculous drunks alone on our special day.  Maybe you could go down in the basement and watch a movie or something.  Or you could take to the internet and tell strangers and former classmates about how “stupid” the holiday is.  I’m sure that’d be much more fun than tongue kissing a stranger that smells like makeup and cigarettes and then yelling, “WOOOO!”  Whatever you do, just do us a favor and leave us to it, ’cause it’s our time.

Sincerely,

metten

“Wasn’t it just terrible what happened to Mary McCloskey?” said Edna St. James to Ann Williams early on Monday morning.

“Yes, just horrible,” answered Ann. “I’ve always been a little leery of those lift chairs.  They found her body all the way across the room!”

Edna St. James lived in apartment 311 in Golden Heights Senior Citizen’s Complex and she was the designated gardener in charge of the front flower beds. Ann Williams lived in 708 and was one of the resident “characters” — some would say a royal bitch. Mary McCloskey was the fallen resident of 212. She had looked out the window a lot.

“I hope that old biddy’s out of the flower bed when I get back, I need a new flower,” said Ann to herself as she walked toward city hall to pay her water bill. Ann was very fond of plants and flowers and simply loved a single fresh bud in a small vase on her kitchen table. She had been buying her flowers at the grocers, but the prices had grown intolerable so she had recently resorted to visiting the complex’s prized flower beds.

Edna was very protective of her flowers, almost laughably so. When she would find that one had been picked, she would become visibly angry. She posted signage on all of the bulletin boards and was very suspicious of anybody who commented on them. Most just stayed away for fear of being publicly persecuted. At Golden Heights, flowers were neither a sign of peace nor tranquility.

When Ann returned from her errands Edna was indeed gone.  So she boldly stepped one foot over the miniature plastic fence and snagged a healthy red bud from the black soil. She then winked at Rose McClannahan who sat giggling into her hand on a nearby bench.

Seven hours later an ambulance screamed to a halt in front of the complex. Mass rubber-necking immediately broke out.

“What happened?” said Rose.

“Why, I don’t know,” whispered Ann.

A large slab of ceiling tile had fallen on a tooth-sucking Jesse Winsome in the cafeteria, and he was pronounced dead by the paramedics. Out front a horror-stricken Edna St. James ran through the double doors and stared at the empty space in her flower bed. Ann and Rose watched and said nothing.

Ann found this behavior to be curious. Residents were dropping like flies and all Edna could think about was her damn flowers. She just couldn’t figure that woman out.

While sitting on the bus on Thursday Ann began to piece together some bizarre idea that linked the flower bed to the residents of the complex. She noted that on every day a resident had died, she had earlier picked a fresh flower.  She was momentarily horrified but then quickly dismissed it as the overactive imagination of an old woman.

When Ann returned to the complex that afternoon, she stopped at the flower bed and for the first time took a good long look at it. Edna was giving her suspicious glances as Ann counted to herself. The flowers were planted in perfect rows of fifteen. There were seven rows and there should have been 105 flowers, which was the exact number of units at Golden Heights. But seven flowers were missing. And seven tenants had recently died!

Ann could hardly carry herself to the elevator. Her cheapness and attempts at being cute had caused seven people to die. She went into her apartment and eventually slept a tortured sleep.

Ann had always been a morning person however, and when she awoke she was full of vigor and looking on the bright side.  She convinced herself that she hadn’t reached the age of seventy-three merely by accident. She thought of herself as being a very shrewd woman, and was preparing to fall back on that virtue one more time.

Ann despised living on the top floor and wasn’t about to continue to do so. She devised a plan that would eliminate Edna St. James and win her control of the flower bed. She would then cause one of the first floor apartments to become empty, which she would immediately seize as her own.  Ann was second in line to receive a ground floor apartment, behind Edna who would be dead by then.  It was perfect.

On Saturday morning Ann slid out of bed and proceeded down to the dew covered flowers.  She counted down three rows and over eleven, Edna’s apartment being number 311. She closed her eyes and pulled the flower from the ground. And four hours later Mrs. Upjohn in 511 slipped on an olive and emptied most of her blood supply under the stove. Ann had started counting from the wrong end. Damn!

But on Wednesday Edna St. James quit breathing when she guessed the exact amount of the showcase on The Price Is Right. Ann had completed phase one of her plan. Very soon waiting on an elevator would be a thing of the past for her.

On Friday Ann went to the funeral home and tried to decide on a color of drapes for her new apartment, while Edna’s relatives howled in grief. Then Ann’s friend Rose walked in, and placed a bouquet of familiar flowers on the midriff of the dead Edna St. James.

“Rose, where’d you get those flowers?” inquired Frantic Ann.

“You know she loved them so, I just felt it was appropriate,” answered Sincere Rose.

Ann rushed back to the complex to find flames shooting out of the seventh floor windows. She looked down in horror, and saw that the entire seventh row of the flower bed was missing.  Then a fireman’s helmet fell from the roof and put her to sleep forever.

The plant life was dead. We punched in at three and out at twelve and for eight hours performed as thoughtless robots operating on static habit alone. The only deviations we knew were our own personal, transient pains and discomforts. We would have welcomed real sickness but received the company newsletter instead. I still don’t feel guilty for what happened.

The raw idea of listening to other people’s thoughts is instantly intriguing and, when actually realized, downright exciting. However, the undeniable innocence of our first “study” only managed to remind us of just how immoral our actions actually were. But, perhaps because of our dulled state of mind, our fuckit glands took over.

We gained access to Sammy’s world through a back door that had been left unlocked for us.  A sympathetic night foreman, named Sahley, recognized our sorry situation and allowed us, without involvement, to use the new equipment for our own selfish entertainment. Immediately life at The Piedmont Surveillance Company switched gears.

Piedmont was testing a very expensive and controversial anti-robbery device that allowed businesses and institutions the privilege of learning a person’s intentions by reading his thoughts, and pumping them into a headset.

As a customer entered an establishment he passed through an invisible beam that instantly read and translated his thoughts into a hum. If a customer hummed like a refrigerator, he was OK. If he hummed like a barber, he was suspect. Piedmont hoped to keep barbers out of all convenience stores by the end of the decade.

Sahley and the Piedmont employees knew that the hum was only a gimmick to prevent an outcry of protest, that minds were being read plain and simple. Sahley also saw a morale problem and production decreasing during his shift. He was a desperate man.

So, Sahley allowed the master beam to be turned on an unsuspecting fifteen year old newspaper carrier in the suburbs on November lst. He allowed the boy’s secret thoughts to be broadcast over the public address system at Piedmont during the night. And it had the desired effect.

Workers rushed to the plant to find out hew Sammy had fared in his latest battle with his parents. They cheered his drunken optimism. They howled at his fear of females. And they grew silent when he was having “alone time.” Production increased and Sahley  received a way-to-go raise.

At night, after work, I would invariably think of Sammy. Not about the lustful fantasies he cooked up or the comical predicaments he always found himself in, but the fact that his privacy was being invaded to a degree that I had never dreamt possible. He was a young man who, sitting across from his buddies at McDonald’s, would think, “Jeez, what an asshole,” just like any normal person does from time to time.  Only Sammy’s passing thoughts were booming out of speakers in a cavernous warehouse across town, and eliciting cheers.

Sammy’s every daydream between the hours of three and twelve became subject to our voyeuristic considerations. But I cannot deny that the sound of the time-clock punching me in became more satisfying than the sound of it punching me out. I felt ashamed, almost un-American.

But a funny thing happened on the way to nirvana — we grew bored. After stamping around in Sammy’s world for three months the repetitiveness of his thoughts began to get tiring. The novelty had worn itself out and a predictable rhythm took its place. We tried turning the beam on others but it just wasn’t fun anymore. A retarded girl offered us temporary solace but after awhile it just became more of the same. I think it was Brenda who first danced.

The beam was on a college professor and the rhythm of her predictable thoughts became intoxicating. Brenda dropped what she was doing and began to dance. She twirled and dipped, and kicked and stepped. She pulled Roy from behind his machine and together they danced to the steady syncopation of human thought. Eventually we all danced, together, within the corrugated walls of The Piedmont Surveillance Company.

Sahley confined the dancing to the break area, but allowed us to continue to listen in the shop. Our lunch hours became visits to the set of some bizarre Un-American Bandstand, with Roy as the host. Workers gyrated to the wild thoughts brought on by anger, and slow danced to self-pity.  Strobes and spot lights were eventually installed and platforms were built for multilevel dancing.

Production rose dramatically, despite the fact that the employees were getting little rest. Morale was at an all-time high. Sahley’s status as a genius rose with Piedmont’s profits. And Roy became a full blown celebrity.

But once again we eventually grew bored. Gimmicks did little to stave off the inevitable fall from grace. Rate-a-thought became popular (“it’s got a good beat and I kind of agree with it”) a but it was too little too late. Again the retarded girl was tapped but there were few jazz fusion fans at The Piedmont Surveillance Company during that time. Roy then started mixing real music in with the more traditional fare, in a last ditch effort to save his show.

Workers began using their breaks in a more conventional manner. They still listened, but few danced. And Roy noticed that they responded better to the records than to the “borrowed” thoughts, so he began playing more records.

Eventually we just bought a radio.

Although he was born years before the Herman comic strip appeared, Herman was appropriately named. With a head like a meat bell and a surgically-attached cigarette butt on his bottom lip, Herman could’ve stepped right off the funny pages. He was a human grotesquerie, a disgrace to the tradition of cell division. And it was said that he could be smelled by phone.

Herman had few friends in this world and except for “the shiny fellows” that camped on his scalp, he had no pets. He lived alone in a house that resembled a chemical explosion with a screen door. It overlooked the town on what was once called Pleasantview Hill, but was now known as that goddamn dump.

Because of his hygiene philosophies (“odors are songs for the nose, and I am a jukebox”) Herman led a very lonesome life. He spent the bulk of his days making fishing lures with his rectal hair, and staring at pictures of Scott Baio and Hubert Humphrey, the only two he owned. He missed his friends, who didn’t come around anymore. And he missed his beloved wife Dorothy, who had died years earlier. Herman cried every day, and his tears smelled like cabbage.

Approximately once every three or four months, when the loneliness grew unbearable, Herman would walk out his back door and calmly set fire to his tool shed. Then he’d return to his house and begin preparing for visitors. He’d cut a big hunk of cheese and fill a bowl with something crunchy, usually saltines or pudding. And when he was sure that the shed wasn’t going to go out, he’d call the fire department.  Then he’d lean back and wait for his company to arrive.

The fire department and most of the town knew of this rather questionable practice and while they didn’t exactly approve, they didn’t take steps to stop it from continuing either.  Most had a deep-seated pity for Ol’ Herman and could tolerate his seemingly harmless actions.  Besides, by allowing him to pull such stunts, it erased some of the guilt they felt for letting him suffer up on that hill all alone. They also believed that firemen were the only people qualified to enter his house.

The fire fighters would put out the blaze in the tool shed and then spend a couple of hours chatting with Herman, careful not to let on that they knew his secret. .Then they would return to town and reflect on what they had seen. They marveled at the multi-colored fungus that crept out of Herman’s dress shoes. And they wondered how much time was invested in those huge whole-grain boogers he had plugged in.  And they tried and tried to describe the smell.

The new mayor of the town happened to be passing through the room when one of these discussions was taking place, and he got an idea. The senior citizen’s home was scheduled to open, and if he was able to lure Herman out of that goddamn dump and into an apartment, the town would praise him.  Herman’s rather conspicuous piece of land could be cleaned up and, once in the home, Herman would never be lonely again. Everybody wins! The mayor thought himself a genius.

He put on his best persuadin’ suit and drove up Pleasantview Hill to see Herman the next morning. Of course Herman was ecstatic to have another visitor so soon. He invited the mayor in and they sat down on a moist sofa. Herman offered his guest a slice of milk, which was politely refused. The mayor immediately turned the conversation to the matter at hand.

He had plotted a strategy as to how he would present the proposal, not wanting to spook Herman before the idea could be considered. He began gingerly, by asking him if he’d ever lived anywhere else, and Herman said no. The mayor asked him, as if addressing a child, if he would ever consider moving to another location, and Herman said yeah. The mayor asked him carefully if he’d ever consider moving to a place where all the meals were prepared for him, there were plenty of people around, and activities were planned every day.

Herman said he thought he knew what the mayor was getting at and, as a matter of fact, had been considering such an arrangement for some time now. The mayor was beaming as Herman reached into the drawer of his end table and pulled out a small handgun and calmly shot the mayor in the neck. Then he began preparing for his company to arrive, to take him to his new home.

For instance…

Several years ago I attended a Major League Baseball game in Pittsburgh.  The Pirates were playing the San Diego Padres, and I had decent seats: in the upper deck, but on the infield along the third base line.

I hadn’t been to a MLB game in many years, and it was a fun day for me.  What made it even better was the fact that we didn’t even have to pay for the tickets.  My friend Mike got them through his job somehow.

And that’s a perfect example of a time when I didn’t shit.  In fact, I don’t believe I shit until much later in the night, after I got home.

Additionally, my wife and I took our dog for a walk through the neighborhood several days ago.  It was a beautiful evening and people were out in their yards, mowing or enjoying a cold beverage.

Several times we stopped and chatted with neighbors, and at one point our rambunctious border collie wriggled out of his collar, and started running free throughout the neighborhood.  We all got a big kick out of it, I’m telling you.  Silly dog!

And that was another time when I didn’t shit.  Not even a small amount.  We took our walk, talked to people, had a few laughs… and I didn’t shit at all.

However, and this is when it starts to get confusing, about a week ago I was watching a movie on DVD.  I think it was The Right Stuff – one of my all-time favorites.  And out of the blue, I had to go.

It probably had something to do with the large plate of spaghetti I ate for dinner, along with the garlic bread and garden salad.  I put the disc on PAUSE, went to the bathroom and shit, returned to the couch, and started the movie again.

So, you see?  There’s no rhyme or reason to it.  Sometimes I shit, and sometimes I do not.  I kind of take it on a case by case basis.

Dear Editors,

There’s a homeless woman that comes in the soup kitchen where I volunteer, and she wants to run for mayor.

But the city has this really stupid law that requires people who want to run for mayor to pay a fifty dollar registration fee, which essentially shuts out homeless people and poor people from running for office.

I’m sorry, but I think this stinks!

My friends say I’m crazy for feeling so strongly about it, but I can’t help it.

They say she couldn’t be mayor anyway because she’s an alcoholic and rubs shit in her hair.  That attitude really makes me angry!

First of all, alcoholism is a disease (duh) and I don’t see why a person should be dismissed just because he or she has a disease.  How would you feel if you were suddenly fired from your job because you got a case of dry skin?  I think that stinks!

And I guess the fact that she rubs shit in her hair makes her less “mayoral?” I’m sorry, but could we be more image-driven?

Everybody says they’re for equal rights but the mere thought of a homeless, alcoholic, shit-smeared person (who just happens to be a woman) repels them.

I’m sorry, but did somebody just say “hypocrite?”

I think we should all work on being less critical and more open to new ideas. And if you’re not, you’re nothing but an intolerant, closed-minded, money-grubbing, fat-assed Republican!  And I think that stinks!

I’m sorry, but I had to get that off my chest.

Amber R.

A few days ago a woman was telling me a fantastically unfunny story that seemed to involve her, a bag of potatoes, and a cocker spaniel.  I say “seemed to” because I was barely listening to her dumb ass.

And as this person was nearing the climax of her oh-so-witty tale, she leaned way forward, bucked her teeth out like Man o’ War, put her right hand on my forearm, and let loose with a high piercing laugh that probably affected the migration habits of local birds.

Good god!

But as irritating as everything else happened to be, it was the touching that bothered me the most…  Why do people insist on doing that?  Why do they feel the need to force their foreign, questionable flesh against mine?  It gives me the goddamn heebie-jeebies.

Oh, I’m no germaphobe; that’s not really the root of my objection to all this talk-touching.  But since we’re on the subject, how do I know where your hand’s been?  How am I to be sure you haven’t been booger-harvesting, or crack-scratching, or crotch-tweaking?  Heck, I saw a movie once where a woman inserted her entire right arm… well, that’s probably a subject for another day.

No, what bothers me most about all this constant touching, is the inappropriately intimate nature of it.

I mean, I don’t really even know you.  You sit in the third cubicle down from me, eating hoagies, talking about medical procedures, and chewing Clove brand gum all day.  And I’m sorry, but that’s not enough for the two us to start rubbing skin.  Sure, you have an unusually large allotment of the stuff, but that doesn’t mean I want it on me.

It’s not just you, though.  It’s also men who expect me to hold their hand for a few seconds when we meet.  They call it a “shake,” but it’s hand-holding at its essence – and just as gay as a shoe with bells on it.

“Glad to meet you… please put your hand into mine.”

Also the back-slappers, the huggers, the one-cheek kissers, the two-cheek kissers, the one hand on the shoulder gang…  What’s the story with you people?  Just leave me alone!  Stop touching me!!

And don’t even get me started on the fist bumpers.  That one really bothers me.  It seems to be a hip and jaunty way of fulfilling the bizarre need for dermis rubbing, made to seem manly and cool and sporty.

“Hooray!  Our team just scored a touchdown!  Will you please now tap my knuckles with yours?”  WTF?

Please don’t misunderstand.  I’m not anti-social or a misanthrope, or anything like that.  I just don’t feel a need to go around touching people like a blind man at a class reunion.  It’s creepy, and unnecessary.

Here’s a novel idea:  Just keep your oily, blotchy, poop-spangled flesh over there, and I’ll keep mine over here.  The fact that it even needs to be said troubles me greatly…

Dear Wannabe Artist Guy:

Okay look man, you’re generally a nice guy and we have no interest in pissing you off or hurting your feelings.  We would hate it if this was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused you to come in here shooting, but we voted and we’ve decided to take that chance.  Unfortunately there’s no easy way to say this, so we’re just gonna say it:  Your band, your novels,  your screenplays, your one act plays, your drawings and other related creative endeavors are really, really shitty. You are literally talentless when it comes to the creative arts.  If you’re going to insist on creating that stuff, we respectfully ask that you quit showing it to us, talking to us about it or involving us at all in the process.  Further, we hereby formally decline any and all invitations to any type of performance in which you are involved now and in the future.  To be honest, we wish we could unsee performances that, through guilt and constant prodding, you’ve forced us to attend in the past.  We wish that it hadn’t come to this, but we feel that we have no choice.

Really, we feel bad…but to be honest, we gave you a fair shot.  We were listening when you told us that you felt like you were “born to entertain people”. We heard you loud and clear when you got drunk at the Christmas party, laid on the copy machine, started bawling and wailed, “I just wanna make people laugh!  Is that too much to ask?”  If it makes you feel any better, that Nick guy in receiving was laughing pretty hard at the time.

And at first we tried to be supportive.  Remember that time we all went to that seedy bar and paid a $4 cover just to watch you gyrate arrhythmically while you fucked around on a guitar?  We were the ones dressed in business casual attire quivering in the corner while the biker gang had their way with “Kori the Temp”.  We were actually grateful that you helped to finally rid us of Kori (although we felt a little guilty that you had to steer her back toward her methamphetamine and sex addictions just to make her go away), but the risk just wasn’t worth the reward.  Specifically the part where your nasally tenor vociferations attacked our eardrums like the fat secretary on the first floor attacks poppy seed muffins.  Out of respect for you, we stayed through the entire goddamned set.  We turned to alcohol hoping the natural analgesic would weaken the pain caused by your performance (it didn’t)…but we stayed…goddamnit.

Remember when you asked us to proofread the screenplay you wrote before you mailed it to the Nicholl Fellowship people?  I read that thing myself and it was the turdiest turd that ever had the misfortune of falling out of a human being.  It couldn’t have been any turdier if you had an electrified turd-making machine.  The characters were simultaneously unrealistic and unlikable throughout all 120 pages.  The dialogue was so wooden and lifeless that even Keanu Reeves couldn’t pull it off.  The story was stupid as dog shit.   No one would ever drive across country to buy a lottery ticket.  Besides, don’t we have enough fucking movies where people drive across the country?  Haven’t we, the American movie-going public, seen enough of unrealistic and unlikeable people driving across the goddamned country already?  Jesus!  Did I mention the thing was complete and total dog shit? I would rather help you move a body than read another one of your “writing projects.”

Most annoying of all is your attitude.  You act like you’re some sort of precious gem just waiting to be pulled from dirt and filth that is this office.  The reality is that you’re lucky to be here making enough money to keep your pathetic ass alive.  Anyone who believes that the crap you routinely produce and shove down our throats is actually good is probably also making several other critical errors around the office. If you continue to take your fortunate position for granted we’re going to beat the shit out of you, put you in a box and mail your ass to Addis Ababa.  Maybe by the time you get back you’ll realize how good you have it here, you fucking hack.  Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.  Now, for the love of God…shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,

Your Tortured CoWorkers