Nostalgiac

I've been working at the commune for way too long.

Sure, this was true after about day three, but now it's way beyond true. Some office skinflint just reminded me that this week is the fourth anniversary of the commune publishing on a regular basis, which is something like celebrating the day you got bit on the nards by a shark. The scary thing is that Omar Bricks was here even before that, back when we were all working on the much-preferable "When the Fuck Ever" publishing schedule pioneered by High Times.

It was never my plan to stay here for so many years. Actually, my original plan was to pose as an employee for a day so I could drive my dirt bike around inside the office after everyone else had gone home. I also thought I might be able to make off with some fax paper to sell on the black market, since that shit's expensive and employee theft isn't generally considered stealing. It's like a pitcher cheating in baseball, wiping his nose on the ball or shooting the batter with a blowdart or whatever—they consider it showing initiative.

Even the business dudes who get caught with their dick all the way into the cookie jar still get off relatively easy, compared to real criminals. They embezzle millions and end up with a sentence of five months at some white-collar fat camp, with all the quiche you can eat. Whereas if you stole that kind of money from a casino or something, they'd chop your balls off with a lawnmower, or at least track you down and coerce you into pulling off another fantastically unlikely international caper to pay back to dough.

Anyway, in the end that was all a moot point since the commune didn't have a damned thing worth liberating. It was like trying to get blood from a stone, or dogshit from a dead dog. Everything that wasn't bolted down had already been carted off by the commune's longer-tenured employees, or perhaps had never been there in the first place. But who puts together an office with only one chair? Just that first day, the chairfights were like something out of Lord of the Flies. Hell, I didn't get my own chair until I'd been here for two years, and that was only because we raided Crochet!'s offices for supplies and whatever strong-backed temps we could herd into the elevator.

I did get to ride my dirt bike around the office and tear shit up that night though, and that almost made a day's worth of Rok Finger's rants about why nobody makes black toothpaste worth it. I'm still not sure why I came back for Day 2, I guess mostly to see if I could pull it off, but that ended up being a pretty weak challenge. I just acted like I'd always worked here, and nobody'd been paying enough attention to doubt it. I even won "Employee of the Month" my first month here, since I was the one who found the key to the men's room after Sampson L. Hartwig baked it in a cake and tried to use it to get his dad out of jail.

Back then I was still worried about the legality of fraudulently seeking employment in a field in which you have no training or expertise, so my "Employee of the Month" plaque had my fake name on it, Phil Donahue. Actually, that plaque's still up in the break room, and last year we all had to listen to Gay Bagel lecture us all on living up to Phil's example, which was pretty funny since it's my picture on the plaque. But Phil's become something of a legend around the commune offices since he's the perpetual Employee of the Month, due to someone blowing up the plaque-making equipment trying to make an Omar Bricks Bowling Jesus trophy during my second month here.

Incidentally, Ned Nedmiller still calls me Phil, whenever I see him down at the wishing well with his metal detector. Jesus, I've been working at the commune way too long. Bricks out.

Changes
Omar Bricks has never believed in oil changes. I've always been one to say "Get it right the first time, jackass." Why waste time and money filling your car with shitty oil you're going to regret 3,000 miles down the road? Do the homework now and... (9/19/05)

Omarelief
Quit being so goddamned selfish, people. There are folks drowning or something down wherever they're having that problem, because of rain or malfunctioning plumbing of some sort, and we're in a position to help. Wherever these people are, and I want... (9/5/05)

WEASELS-B-GON
Don't even start with the nonsense about this all being Omar Bricks' fault. Because I won't stand, sit, or recline for it. In case you've been living on Planet Asshole in the Out-of-Touch Nebula for the last month, you probably noticed that the... (8/22/05)

Genius, Inc.
After last installment's adventures with the Omar Bricks Perpetual Motion Machine (an electric water distiller covered on all sides by throbbing punch-balloons) and the resulting disastrous core meltdown that destroyed the southern quarter of my... (7/11/05)