Tuesday, July 1, 2003

The next time you visit Paltry Puissance, gentle reader, I ask that you ignore the content on grace, gigs, and graduation. Instead, you should turn your attention to the tagline: “Just a newly freed monkey trying to become the man he will be…”

It’s rather cryptic, to be sure, but allow me to elucidate. On a Monday morning not too long ago, I came into the office to discover a memo placed on my solid-gold, made-for-CEO desk. An aside for you, dear reader: Never try to move a solid-gold desk up fifty flights of lavishly marbled stairs using twenty Chinamen. It simply won’t work. Twenty-five Chinamen, you say? Now that sounds more feasible.

Anyway, the memo that awaited me spoke of events most disturbing. My Science and Technology Department was apparently engaged in rigorous testing the week before. Of particular importance was a lab monkey that my scientists were experimenting upon, and this monkey decided to escape our secure facility. How did he do this? That is another story for another time, but I will tell you this much: we were simply running tests on a new hair product, Coifftastic Gel, when Test Monkey No. 5 decided to make like a Rat of Nimh. I sent out my Reclamation Team to fetch the damn monkey, but I haven’t heard from them since. Foul play? Indubitably!

I don’t know what was in the test batch of Coifftastic Gel–the spec sheet says that the shit is filled to the brim with pheromones galore, so make your own twisted conclusions–but it was apparently enough to goad Test Monkey No. 5 into creating “Paltry Puissance.” And so he revels in his ill-begotten freedom from a secure computer terminal, several times a week. Yeah. That’s how it all happened.

Also note: The Substantive News Machine is still being built. Don’t hold your breath just yet.