Disclaimer.

 

I am completely inadequate to all functions, roles, and responsibilities;
unequal to the task at hand; overrun by screaming hordes.

With the click of this button I am forwarding you a phishing scheme
from a junk flotilla off the coast of Korea. Fiber-optic cable-rubble rusts
at the bottom of my ocean; prone to dysfunction, rebooting without warning.

You will not have the opportunity to save your work.

My recycling bin is jammed with plush mush; I am covered in paper cuts;
I weep tears from all eyes, ears, noses, and mouths; other pores, sores, moles, and freckles also.

I am not your fearless leader; I am not Steve McQueen escaping Stalag Luft
via flying motorcycle, only I am Steve McQueen (the British fashion designer),
and, as in that Far Side cartoon, our tunnel goes loopy, never once surfacing.

We will not see the stars tonight.

We will not be busting through turf, breathing fresh air, spitting out fresh dirt.
I am the scalding coffee bloom on your pressed blue shirt.

What you require, I cannot provide. Cave-in, collapse, workplace injury,
accidental death/dismemberment, workman's comp claim denied by technicality,
unspecified maiming and/or laming—all these so common, they hardly need naming—

but can be found in the fine print on the laminated poster above the water cooler.

I am a buffet-line conversation at 5:28 p.m. in a convention center atrium in Minneapolis.
Name your time and place—I’ll be late and lost. I am holding the map upside down.

At this point in the proceedings, I am really phoning it in; the fat lady wants to sing
but I never cued her. By now you should know you can’t trust me with a thing
but letting you down easy. Standing by your side, facing the wrong way.

 

 

 

from The Far Side, by Gary Larson.