Dear Goddess of Mercy and Roadside Assistance,

Please protect me from the morons in the Phoenix metro area who hurtle down the freeway with careless disregard for slower-moving traffic. Please bless our city, which seems cursed with the blight of the monster truck driver and its attendant illusions of invincibility. Bring understanding and compassion to those who believe themselves immune to the laws of man and nature, who daily thumb their noses at those who would enforce their safety and are blind to cars moving on the road as well as those crashed off the side. Please, open our people’s eyes to the havoc they unwittingly wreak in their haste. Give somebody a goddamn clue! Enlighten the City of Phoenix so that they will not employ street sweepers after dark around blind corners going 30 miles an hour in a 75—in the fast lane. For they too are your children. Protect me from the ravages of traffic, allow me to get to work in under 37 minutes, and please cause a natural disaster to permanently cut off all residents of Scottsdale and its Buick-driving inhabitants. There is no need for these ancient creatures to venture on the highways—nor is there any need for them to ever consider the fast lane an option. While you’re at it, dear lady of mercy, please reserve your righteous wrath for people who go at or under the speed limit in the fast lane, because he who knows not that he knows not is a fool, and deserves to ride a bicycle. Also, I beseech you, let the trucker who almost ran me off the road be confined to two-lane streets in Scottsdale that go by schoolyards.

I ask for your protection in my daily sojourn across the metro area, and beg you smite those who would hinder me. Thank you oh goddess of infinite wisdom and justice.

Amen.


*


Every time I drive home I pass a big billboard for Hooters. And I think, hmm. No, gainful employment has not made me give up the idea of making $2.50 an hour while having men stare at my boobs. Quite the opposite, in fact. Now that I have a “real” job, nobody could think I was working at Hooters for the money, which as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be. It would be purely for your entertainment, of course. And maybe Maxim’s.

Ah, the joys of wielding editorial power over other people. To be able to say “Yes! I will publish you!” and “No! I reject your literary pretensions and deem you unworthy of our publication!” ...And you thought editorial assistants were the secretaries of the publishing world. How little you know.

By the way, I would like to take this opportunity to state for the record that I am nice. And that any snarky comments contained herein reflect the thoughts and opinions that might occur to a mean, little person, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, values or perspective of the writer. I’m nice, dammit! I’m just trying to help you see the other side, the mean, little people’s side!

Anyway, I’m over the whole contractions thing. Now it’s on to Irritated Gay Parachutist. Like, why does he have to be so irritated all the time? I ask him whether pictures are of high enough quality and he gives me this lecture about how [patronizing, self-righteous voice] “editorial should take care of which pictures to use, where to put them, and making sure they are high-quality enough to use before it gets to the art department.” Because we do not care to trouble ourselves with such mundane concerns as art. I mean, it’s not like we’re the art department! Noooo.

I mean, whatever. Just don’t give me shit because there’s a big fat chip on your shoulder due to past failings of people who have held my position! I’m new. And I’m nice! So stop being so damn irritated!