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Walter Miller's Homepage(TM)
Living La Vida Yokel.

The Humilliatingly LATE Update covering Aogust, September and Octobor 2000

Page 15 of 39

We just sat there in awe. TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) was the coolest company you coud ever hope to work for. They are legendarry. First of all, alls they use there is Macintosh. Now THAT in itself is cool. Also, they are allways voted close to the top of the best company in Texas (and even the whole countrey) to work for. It was also an extremly cool cutting egde place to work. At least twice a day, bigshot people at Cyberblop say things like, "Harrumph! By God, those geniouses at TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) woud never stand for THAT kind of crappy work," and stuff like that. TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) is privately owned, and if you worked there, you not only had a job for life, but you made allot of money and also profit shairing.

Tilde broke the silence with her nasally crackley Midwesterny shrill Sue-from-Survivor voice. "Oh dear, that is such a hard company to work for. They hire only the best and the brightest. How ever did your gentlemen freind get in?"

Anothor silence went by and this one was very akword as Cathyann's florid face grew reddor and more flushed. You never know what the hell is going on in Cathyann's brain.

"Say whut, y'all," she finaly spoke, "Look at us four settin' here: Ain't we the Seinfeld crew, or WHUT?" Ain't it true? Ain't it? BWAHAHAHA!"

"Whut wuz we talkin' about? I forgot. Oh yeah. DOOwayne."

Cathyann then went on to tell us that Duwayne had a TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) ID badge only for building access, cause alls he worked for was the company that shampoos the carpetts after hours.

"DOOOwayne's a sweetie pie and all, but dumb as a post. Ain't his ID picture cute? That big ass ole head of his woudnt fit in the frame so they done lopped off his ears and chin BWAHAHAHA!"

Thinking out loud, I said, "Man. I woud do ANYTHING to get a job there."

Stu looked up at me, blinked his black piggy eyes and in a sincear voice said, "Walt, why didn't you ever say so? I have contacts there."

I said, "Danmit, Stu I didnt know that."

Stu has conections there: I coud not beleive it.

Stu told me how all the Marketing guys in varrious internet companies all know each othor. And how they all meet at conferrences and stuff in fancy locales, give boring speeches, blow smoke up each other's asses, and exchange amongst themselves a bunch of ugly squat looking Lucite trophy awards. You know, for dumbass web-related achevements like, "Best use of Fonts on a Non-Frames Page." Then at night they all go out and the luckey ones get layed.

"Where do you think your budgets go, Walt?," Stu asked, while stuffin his face with some of Cathyann's starchey cafeteria food," "And why do you think the fiscol year ends right at windsurfing season?"

Then I said sarcausticaly, "Yeah, well allot of good all your contacts are doing ME."

"Walter, I know the marketing veep. Want me to get you an interveiw? Do you want a job there?"

"A job? To do WHAT?"

"To do nothin," said Stu. "The toughest thing about TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) is passing the sniff test. You know, their interveiw process. Its the toughest in the country. Once youre in, youre set for life. The place is a danm country club."

Cathyann shoved me with her big muttonchop of a hand on my neck just as I was takin a sip of my Diet Pepsi. "Lissen up, Walter: Know whut DOOwayne told me? They all wear black knit turtlenecks thar. They call them 'tunics' just like on Star Trek. The whole place wears 'em," she said, swaggoring a bit one one hip, and speaking mattor of factly as she jabbed her finger in the air at me. "He said it wuz like steppin into the FUTURE."

"And whut else," she went on, rambolling out of control, "They all TALK real smart too. They all say smart thangs like, 'Functionality', and 'Deliverables', and "Benchmarks', and 'Touch base,' and ''Push the envellope, and, check this out: 'We're all gonna git on the same page.'"

"Plus all thet fancy stainless steel furniture an' what not--....hold up....I got me a big ole jalapeno burp comin' up...don't worry, y'all, I'll fluff it thataways..."

"Oh, dear," Tilde whined, "I heard they pay for Feng Shui classes, and flexible well-care, and every Wendsday its free Jello Jigglers on the back lawn!"

Cathyann's upper lip rose into an Elvislike sneer of authenticitty as lookin off into the distance she said, "When you work THAR, youre in the FUTURE. Its like livin yer whole life in one o'them ole artsy fartsy Lexus comercials."

I now was a man with a Mission

I had to get a job there at TechnoMeriDigiCom(R). Or rathor, I had to get Stu to get me job there. I marveled at the thoght that everything good might start coming my way. Aftor all, I already had a date with the Womon of my Dreams. Coud I possibly also get my most desired job as well?

I had to get some quallity time with Stu

I needed him to imediatly help me with my resume. Because I was going to send one off to them TONIHGT

Also i needed help with the danm Employment Screening Test. Yes, the TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) test was famous. They give you this very obtuse sort of personallity test before you can work there. Theres allot of hard questoins, the kind you have to THINK on. Like, suposedly Bill Gates took the TechnoMeriDigiCom(R) Enployment Screening test once and failed.

I figured a convienient way to bail out of the lunchroom without nosy little Tilde in tow was to steer the convorsation (always dominated by Cathyann whenever the Seinfeld crew was togethor), toward Cathyann and her boyfreind. Knowing Tilde's codependent pushey ways, I know she woud follow me back to Stu's office and ruin things for me. But I also knew there was no way she coud pull her nosy ears away from a rambling raunchey tale of rural redneck roadside sex.

Once Cathyann started gettin into the details me and Stu got up and left the table. They didnt notice us. It is just as good too, cause the details woud of made me run off and yak anyways.

A long night of work.

The first thing I did was run back to my cubicol to pull my resume off my harddrive and email it to Stu. We woud be working in his office instead of my cube, becuase you can shut the door for privacy.

Just as I was leaving my cube to head to Stu's ofice I was jolted my the ring of the phone. It was Granfather on the othor end and as usuol he just started screamin at me without even sayin "Hello."

"BOY! LISSEN UP: I GOT GAS"

I repleid, "Well what the hell else is new."

"THIS IS SERIOUS, YOU DUMBASS. REMEMBER MAH BILLY BOB THORNTON DIET FROM A MONTH AGO? WAAL, ITS ALL COMIN' HOME TO ROOST."

Granfather, as a result of his raw, nakad hatred of Uncle Will, Uncle Zeke, and the County Clerk, about a month prior to this enbarked on a speciel diet. The diet was designed to, (aftor being on it for 30 days), cause extra gassiness on his part.

Orange You Crazy

Granfather had read in a supermarkat tabloid a story about Billy Bob Thornton, which, (weather the story was true or not), claimed that the populor yokel actor was sufforing from a rare and strange type of anorexia.

Granfather has long known that he suffors from an even rarer condition, called Reptilian Beta Carotine Gastric Intolerance Disordor. (Come to think of it, WE suffor from it, not him.) The Disorder is sort of like Lactose intollerance, exept it effects mainly snakes and iguanas, and causes exessive farting. (This must be why, in the wild, one never sees a lizard eatin a carrot).

Well, anyway, the old basterd got into his small evil head the idea to copy the supposed Billy Bob Thornton diet, undor which the only things you eat are things that are the color orange: this includes squash, yams, kumquatts, lots and lots of Velveeta, cheeze doodles, WisPride aerosol Non-Dairy cracker topping, certian hot peppers, and quohog clams that are not extremly fresh.

And yes, incodentally, Orange Metamucil. Granfather's plan was to become more and more gassy to torture Zeke and William and the County Clerk.

Orange you an extremist

Also Granps took "orange foods" to the extreme, and began consumin things like poisonnous orange mushrooms, Hot Wheels track, Officialy sanctioned Denver Broncos licensed memmorabilia, and WIRED magazine covers.

"WHAT AM I GONNA DO, BWAH?" Granfather wailed.

I said to him, "That is YOUR problem."

"BUT ALL THAT BETA CAROTINE'S GONNA BLOW! IF MAH ASS STARTS UP, I'LL DESTROY MAH WORLD RECORD!"

I was so exasporatted by him. I reminded him that he bothored me before about this, and my advice then was to call the Criptos--which we already did.

"Where is Madison?," I asked.

"ME AN' HIM HAD A BIG FIGHT. HE'S AT THE MOTEL IN TOWN."

"Werent you suposed to ask him what to do?"

"OH YEH."

I then said in a slightley more haughtey tone that I really should have, (being that he is my Granfather and all), "Why dont you just stick a danm washing machene hose up your ass and trail it out the window?"

And then I slammed the phone down.

Clutching my stomoch in constipatory pain to which I am now becoming accustomed, I marched off to Stu's office. I was realy pissed that Granfather had that fight with Madison. I needed to talk to Madison, danm it, about what I shoud do since I took that frikkin rhinoserous diahrrea medicine by mistake.

I am a jerk.

I am one of these people who dosent interview well on jobs, and so I end up with awful jobs.

Stu was just finishing downloadin my resume when I walked in. He glanced at it, and bit his lip and looking sad and empathettic and totally Clintonesque said to me, "Walt, man, your resume sucks."

Stu rules

He is an excellent freind, and even though he now has a big job like Directer of Marketing he still makes time to help a littel guy like me. In fact, he basicaly WROTE my resume for me. And not just took out all the mispellings but also said he'd be an employment refference for me.

"Ok, remember, theyre a Mac shop," said Stu, "Do you know Quark?"

"The Ferengi?" I said.

"No, the software," Stu sighed heavilly. "Walt, you gotta prommise me man: just ace this interveiw. Do that, and youre in."

I said to him, "I will try not to blow it," but we were both pretty sure that I woud. We worked more, and Stu pretended to interveiw me for a few more hours.

Around 8 PM Stu ordered us a pizza. They turn off the aircondittioning here after hours and you know how hot it was last summer.

"Whoo! Onions and peppers! Walt, I'm sorry, but Dominos makes me sweat like a...um, well, it makes me sweat."

Oh, God No

My stomich was already killing me and now here was Stu...

OH GOD NO