The Muse Strikes Back

 

                                         The Muse, though decidedly not my muse.

There came a knock at my door one night at a late night hour. I opened the door and there he was.

"You!!! I exclaimed. "What the fuck are you doing back here?"

It was my long lost Muse whom I hadn't seen in over five years, and whose absence had made my heart grow fonder, that is way, way fonder that he was gone!

"I thought to come back, Boss, because I've read some of your recent posts," he said, "and frankly you need me!"

"I need you like I need a case of anal warts. You never gave me one good idea!" 

"Are you kidding?  What about The Pure Joy of Leaden Containment Structures or Trump's Hairpiece: Friend or Foe?"

"Yeah, not only didn't I get laughs I was offered to speak at the National Association of Introverted Actuaries."

"All right, how about this one: a spoof of a well known situation comedy called Everybody Thinks Raymond Sucks."

"Get out of here! I'm not taking you back!"

Why, Boss?"

"You slept 'til noon, dropped peanut shells all over the living room floor, and finally I had to lock the liquor cabinet."

"Okay, but why else?"

."With all the Substacks these days, you couldn't find a job with another writer?"

"Yes, for a time I worked for Paul Krugman."

"Paul Krugman?!" Why aren't  you working for him now?"

"Professor Krugman questioned my knowledge of economic theory when I told him  I thought the "time value of money" concerned the time of day he'd pay me on a Friday, and ... umm ..."

"Yes?"

"Liquor cabinet."

"I might have known."

"Please, please, Boss, how about you give me a two week trial?  You won't have to pay me."

"I never paid you!  But alright: Two weeks and that's it!"

"I got a dynamite idea to start off."

Yes?"

"Ginger and Mary Ann mud wrestling."

It's gonna be a long two weeks.

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