The ugly face of reality without the slow-loading graphics.
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For four hours Stu grilled me on the corect answors to all the questions in the TechnoDigiMeriCom(R) employment test.
"OK, why are manhole covers round?" Stu asked. I answored, "How the hell shoud I know?"
"That's an important one, Walt! Theyre round cause if they were any othor shape, they'd fall in the manhole and bop guys in the head!"
Stu told me that this was one of the qeustions Bill Gates suposedly got wrong when he took the test. Next Stu showed me all these ilustrations too, like ink blots, and word quizzes. It was like the danm IQ test they sometimes give in the Readers Digest somtimes except it was written by much more weirder people.
"I'm real happy for you Walter. You dont want to mess up this interview. Oops, almost forgot. Here," he said, tossing a small case across his desk toword me. It was a pair of those blackrimmed granny glasses which are realy in style nowadays among the coolest web developors. These were non priscription, but even so Stu told me that wearing them was usualy good for an extra $5 to $10K on a job offor.
"Whoa! I'll look like Steve Jobs in these!" I said.
"Yeah, and TechnoDigiMeriCom(R) usualy hires very quickly said Stu, "And youll be set for life. They only have, like a thousend employees in the whole world. And you wont do any work. They hire consultants to do all that. the work. They pay realy well, and the place is like a danm country club."
Stu also told me that TechnoDigiMeriCom(R) was more than cutting edge they were bleeding edge. "Get this, Walt: No one even knows what they DO."
Well all of this sounded prety cool to me. I asked Stu why HE never got a job there, considoring all his conections.
"I dunno," he shrugged. "I kinda like this place. With all the dopes here, I guess I feel like I'm king of the barnyard."
I said to him, "Oh yeah? Well I hate travelling. My stomoch is never right."
"Well, you gotta get your guts taken care of," said Stu, "Cause this is a once in a lifetime event."
As wed be traveling to L.A. for Cyberblop and the TV studio at the same time each gave us a per deim on meals.
"Do you know what this means, Walt? Fifty bucks a day from Cyberblop, and fortey from the studio--cheap basterds--and we get breakfest free at the hotel. Ninety bucks a persen, man!"
Stu apeared to allmost be drooling. His eyes danced wildley, and the front surface of his snout shone with a glissoning film of fresh mucus.
"That means for lunch and dinner, its soup, salad, two entrees, three apetizzers, a couple of deserts..."
I made up some B.S. storey to Tilde about havin to take Granfather to the doctor or somthing. One good thing about Granfather is that I can allways use the old basterd as some sort of work-evading excuse.
Tilde was distent but polite. Also she woudnt look me in the eye. It was just a few hours ago she was leaning ovor me and barfing in my lap. She looked hungovor and stressed and I suppose a little too houmilliated even to mention the night before. Or at least say THANKS to me for Godsake for friggin driving her home. That sortof hurt my feelings.
But at least her most nosy tendencies were dampened by her shame. And so I escaped the normol pestering of concerned questions.
The horbble attack was carried out by Granfather. It was on a small animal. I am so ashamed.
Before leaving for my job intervew at TechnoDigiMeriCom(R) I stopped by my office one more time to check my phonemail. (I had been in Stu's office all day cramming for The Test.)
There was a message there from Dr. Blankenship. He was still healing and in allot of pain from the attack Granfather rendered on his butt in my last update but was now out of the hospital and had once agian joined Dr. Ripke and Dr. Madison, the othor two criptozoollogists at our trailor to study the old paranormal basterd.
"Ach!" his thick Scotish accent crackoled over the phone, "Canna you tell me whar, inna that toolshed is that plastic owl for ye Grandaddy's head?"
I imediatly called my house, and Madison picked up. He told me that a ghastley episode had taken place right on the County Green; which by the way is not green at all but insted is this dusty sort of plaza in our town, in front of the courthouse.
Here is what hapened: Granfather as you know, despite our hopes and inclinations to attach human quallities to him, is far from human. He is a danm animol himself. A carniverrous predator who pounces on small creatures like mice and rats arround our yard, and ocasionally a chicken. (But Granfather owns all our chickons so that is not a big deal.)