This is a true story.

There I was, fired again. This time from the hospital after replacing your newborn with a dwarfìsm baby, then a phocomelia baby, then a tetra-amelia baby so you'd think its limbs were slowly receding into it.

And I'd have gotten away with it too, if I could find four the same hue.

Penniless and destitute, I moved back into my uncle's crawlspace, where the rats and cockroaches were plentiful and free. I had my fill of food and friends, yet, somehow, it just wasn't quite the same. They say you can't stand in the same river twice, and that holds true for laying down in a crawlspace filled with piss bottles and skeletons. "I'm 46!", I guessed out loud, "it's time for me to make my own way in the world".

Filled with energy anew, I set out to discover my dream job and purpose in life: municipal ratcatcher? Homeless bum? Movie critic? The possibilities were endless. But where to start? Foolish question: you can only start where you are now. But where to make my next step? First, I looked at my CV: four years making Stephen McDaniel edits, eight years defeating minors in /tv/ debates, twelve years not learning the guitar, and two and a half weeks at the hospital, where I took the initiative of promoting myself from assistant janitor to chief surgeon. With a bit of creative license, that was twenty-four years of freelance video editing, combat experience and self-care expertise. Armed with this cornucopia of qualifications, I marched into the Job Centre Plus, for I am in the Yookay.

The chief matriarch of the Job Centre Plus gave me the Kubrick stare over thick-rimmed glasses. "Mr Bastard", she intoned (which is a feat for a wahman), "I'm afraid you've squandered your life, such as it is. Let me guess: at school you were gifted-but-lazy?"

"Half-right", I affirmed, ambiguously, but, with the low cunning you must expect from these functionaries, she saw through my artful word choice. "Look, Mr Bastard, I'm afraid we don't have any jobs for you, because every company in the city has called us unprompted with requests to blacklist you in particular, because everyone hates you". This, however, I had anticipated.

"So you'll slap me on the dole and furnish me with a council house?"

"No", she replied, halfway through "so".

"Squirrel!" I shrieked, pointing past her in a valiant effort to distract her and steal a pen from the unwashed mug of pens gathering dust on her desk. No dice - someone had tipped her off that there was no window behind her.

I had no choice: I had to turn to crime. But where to source a crew to rob the bank? The parole directory would furnish me with the information I sought! "To the phone book!" I cried, standing up, giving myself a head rush. Dizzily, I slumped back into the chair, further nonplussing my Job Centre caseworker.

A cheesy sitcom transition later, I was in the phone box, but no yellow pages were to be found; doubtless lifted by some vagrant. Undeterred, I sought to call the operator to demand the parole office, but I couldn't remember the number for operator. Deterred, I went back to the crawlspace where I wrote this bløØ☼*g.

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