Well, this morning when I went down to my bike to go to work, I was delighted to discover that during the night some clown had stolen the back wheel off my bicycle. Although since he had left a spare bike seat on the ground, I guess technically that makes it "trade" not "theft", and I appreciate the difference, but still... I wish he had asked first, because really I don't have much use for a second bike seat, whereas the wheel came in rather handy indeed. Maybe he could have come up with something more useful to me.


Also: what the hell do you do with a stolen back bicycle wheel? Did he make his getaway riding off on it, unicycle style?

I think I would have liked to see that.

Well so today was the day that Paul was interviewing candidates for his new position. As it's becoming increasingly clear that Cornelius J. Duffner is no longer under active consideration, I strolled back to Paul's office between his tete-a-tetes with a stream of fresh-faced young job-seekers (one of whom Brandon described uncharitably, if entirely accurately: "That dude! Looks just like Garfield the cat!!")

"So, you get some good prospects reply to your ad?"

"Yeah, we got quite a few... some of them seem really pretty well qualified... we got a lot of people laid off from EHM&T... blah blah blah..." I'd pretty much stopped listening by now of course, for the excellent reason that other people's resumes is one of those things that I don't particularly care about.

When Paul dribbled to a close, I said: "So, did you get the resume I sent?".

Paul stared at me for all of about a half a second before he busted up laughing. "You?! YOU sent that Corndog resume?! Ha! Ha!" Then we spent a few minutes guffawing about the hapless Corndog and his resume and the preposterous cover letter which had accompanied it. Turns out that Paul had identified it almost immediately as some sort of joke.

I got the sense though, that even though Paul had seen right away that the resume was fraudulent, he was kind of saddened to have his suspicions confirmed. I think he really wanted it to be real; deep down, bosses are just like real people. Deep down, they- like us- want to live in a world where Corndogs earnestly send resumes listing such prior work experience as Puck Boy for the local hockey team.

Well, I've been checking Corndog's e-mail, like, ten times a day and still no response to the resume I sent out. I'm beginning to suspect that Corndog isn't in the running for the opening.

This is a pity, because I've mapped out a whole persona now for Corndog, voice and all. He's kind of a moron, sure, and a loudmouth too- but an amiable dolt all the same. To the bafflement of my friends and/or telemarketers, I've taken to answering my phone "Yo! Corndog here!" on the hopes that it might be Paul calling, but it never is and I think that frankly I'm sadder about my fake resume not getting a response than I've ever been for any of the times my real resume went out in a blaze of hope and earnestness only to die forgotten and unloved in resume oblivion.

I know that recently I've been boohooing about the fact that work has been pretty much non-existent lately, so it may come as a surprise to report that my company has placed a help-wanted ad on Craigslist.

The deal is that my boss, Paul, wants to consolidate some of his more further-flung operations under one roof, and to do that he'll have to fire some of his more distant minions and replace them with local help.

As my own personal workflow is pretty threadbare, I decided to send a resume in response to the ad. Maybe I'll get the job!

(Note to any prospective employers who may be reading this: Don't get too excited, this resume is almost entirely ficticious. My own real resume is nowhere near so compelling.)