I tried to quit my factory job today, but when I called the vicious rat bastards, they couldn’t even remember who I was (which, of course, is unforgivable — after all, I’ve only been shirking work for a few months now).

     And since voluntary slavery is the price we pay for freedom, I decided to look for another job.

     I called the Polite and Understanding Telemarketing Agency, here in Cassandra, Iowa.  The nice old lady who answered the phone said she could interview me right away.

     Not wanting to waste one single second, I snatched my résumé from the top drawer of my black filing cabinet, hopped into my car, and sped off to what was sure to be my future place of employment.

     Within minutes, I was in PUTA’s office building.  The receptionist directed me to the little old lady’s office.

     I sauntered in and handed her my résumé.  “Hi, I’m — ”

     “Shut up!” she screamed.

     “But I’m here for the inter — ”

     “I said shut up!  Haven’t you ever had a job interview before?  The interviewer always speaks first.  You’ve got a lot to learn, mister.”

     “Is this — ”

     “Shut the hell up!  I ask the questions.  Now, sit down, Buster Brown.  I said sit down!  And if I hafta tell you again, I’m gonna pistol-whip your ass.”

     “OK, OK.”

     “Shut up!  All right, first off, do you ever swear?”

     “What?”

     “Do you ever use profanity?  It’s not a trick question.”

     “Well, no.  Not really.”

     “You’re a fucking liar!”

     “What?”

     “I could never hire a fucking liar.”

     “But — ”

     “You see, I was just testing you to see if you’re honest — and I see you’re not.  The last thing we telemarketers need is to develop a reputation for dishonesty.”

     I bit my lower lip to suppress a smile, just in case she was actually being serious.

     “But,” she continued, “I suppose it’s not your fault that you’re a Kennedy.  And, besides, I’m a nice person, so I’ll give you a second chance.”

     “Thanks,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief.  “For a moment there, I was thinking — ”

     “Shut the hell up!  Now, what was your most embarrassing moment?”

     “What kind of question is that for a job interview?”

     “That is it!”  She yanked open the middle drawer of her desk and whipped out a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle.  “Answer the question.”

     “Um . . . I . . . uh . . . I . . . um,” I quavelled.

     “Well?”

     “Um, I guess it would’ve been when I was training to become a gynecologist.  It was my first day, and I was assisting the doctor.

     “A woman was lying on her back with her legs up in the stirrups.  I couldn’t see her face.

     “The doctor got an important phone call, so he had to leave the room.

     “Just then, I spied the most beautiful vagina I’d ever seen — it had the cutest little distended clitoris.  I just had to give it a lick.

     “‘Oh, God,’ the woman moaned.  Her voice sounded eerily familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

     “I bolted outta the room in horror when I discovered the woman was my mom.”

     “How inconvenient.  Now, what would you say was your most annoying moment?”

     “Hmm, I think that would’ve been the time I was at a movie theatre, many years ago, watching one of my all-time favorite films — Amazon Women on the Moon — and I missed most of the jokes, ’cause a gaggle of wankers in the back row were cackling like crazed chickens, and pelting each other with what I thought were water balloons.  But, as I was spinning around to tell ’em to simmer down, one of the balloons wound up striking me in the face — and I found out they were filled with rancid piss.”

     “Poor dope.  Finally, I’d like for you to describe to me your most discombobulating moment.”

     “Well, one night at church camp, up in Pollyanna, Iowa — back when I was just a little munchkin — I dreamt that I was engaging in autofellatio — ”

     “Excuse me?”

     “Sucking my own cock.  But when I woke up, the youth counselor was standing above me, pulling up his pants and smiling.”

     “Ah . . . memories.  So, Mr. Kennedy, if you were me, why would you hire you?”

     “Well, if — ”

     “Shut up!”

     “But — ”

     “Shut the hell up!  Wait for my signal.”

     “Your signal?”

     She hoisted her handgun over her head and fired a few slugs into the ceiling.  Bits of plaster splattered her desk, and I could faintly hear some poor schlemiel on the floor above shrieking, “Ow — my ass!”

     “OK,” I continued.  “As I was saying — ”

     She fired again.  “That wasn’t my signal.”

     “Then what is your signal?”

     “Never mind.  Proceed.”

     “OK, I guess if I were you, I wouldn’t really hafta hire me, ’cause I’d be you, so I’d already work here.  Now, if I were you and you were me, I’d probably hire you just because you’re me — and I’d hafta be some kind of masochist or something to not hire myself.  But then — ”

     She pointed the pistol at my penis and said, “You’ve got ten seconds to get outta my sight, you baldheaded chickenfucker.”

     It took me two.

Part II

Baldheaded?