I sat in my office this morning, clutching my face and contemplating a particularly ghastly fact: starting tomorrow, for the next four days, I am completely in charge of the office. Half the staff is clearing out to go to a conference in Huntington Beach, leaving me--unbelievably, the most senior staff member remaining--to troubleshoot, to solve disputes, to negotiate delicate solutions to intractable problems, such as "Somebody stole my soup cup!"

I wasn't up to it. So I did the logical thing. Shutting my office door--who are these beanheads who gave me a door?--I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Jaegermeister. I prided myself on waiting until 8:00 AM to start drinking. "A new record!" I mused, "I deserve a drink."

I was halfway through the bottle when a knock came at my door. "G'way!" I snarled, "'m drinkin'!" A familiar voice said, "What?" Nuts. It was R., a Bossman of some stature. "Sorry!" I said, "Hold on!" I hurled the Jaeger bottle out the window, and dimly heard it impact onto I-5 below with accompanying sounds of tires wailing and metal crumpling. Fuck those freeway chumps--why weren't they already in their offices drinking? No time for pity. I opened the door, and R. came in.

"What's up?" R. said, staring a little too intently at my disheveled state; I had gotten up too late to shower, and was unable to find a comb in any of the dumpsters on my way to work, so my hair looked like a football team had ejaculated on my skull. There were mysterious stains on my pants (Heinz 57; I had gotten curious as to their provenance and tasted them earlier), and I was clad in a dingy bathrobe mysteriously adorned with illustrations of Fidel Castro. It's a long story.

"I'M WORKIN'!" I screamed a little too forcefully, and demonstrated my job-zeal by hammering crazily on my keyboard; the F8 button suddenly came loose, bounced off of my eye, and then fell glumly onto the floor. R. stared at it, and I mumbled, "It's always been loose. Been meaning to fix that."

R. blinked and said, "Uh, anyway. I'm taking off tomorrow, so I wanted to drop this off before I forgot." He held something out to me, and I blearily reached for it. He dropped a key in my hand, which I recognized immediately, and my basal ganglia writhed at the realization. It was the master key to all the offices. I peered owlishly at the horrible thing, as if he had shat in my hand.

"You shat in my hand!" I muttered crazily. "What?" R. said nervously. "Nothing," I said, recovering, "I was remembering an old scat video I saw once." R. coughed politely and continued. "That's a master key," he said unnecessarily, "in case for some reason you need to get into someone's office for something." I held the thing like the Pope would hold a bag of fresh dogshit. Are they unhinged? Why are they giving me this? Don't they know I'm liable to use their computers to send threatening letters to foreign consulates? I flailed for a proper reply. "Ah, yes, I see, okay," I stammered, "Good to have. I'll keep it safe!" I grinned at him desperately, making sure to show him all my molars. "Nobody gets raped on my watch! Unsecure offices are a workplace menace!" I jangled the key merrily and dropped it down the front of my pants. "Safe! Right by my nuts!" I leaned back in my chair, attempting an attitude of confident composure, which was slightly compromised by my 45-degree angle of repose. I fingered my Fidel-robe distractedly, pinching one of his heads distractedly.

R. stood for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to say. Finally, he spoke: "Well. Ah. Hope everything goes well. Just do your best. I'll see you next week." I showed him my teeth again, giving him a really winning rictus. "You betcha! I'll keep these cocksuckers in line!" R. twitched and edged towards the door. "I'm sure you will. Thanks for helping out while we're away."

No problem. It's going to be easy. I'm in charge, after all. I can hardly wait. Tomorrow morning, when I'm deep into the Jaeger bottle, I'll hear the nervous knock at the door. "WHAT?" I'll scream. "There's a problem," some luckless person will say. And I'll know just what to do.

"G'way!" I'll howl. "'m'drinkin!"