Have you ever had one of those weeks at work where you feel harried every hour of every day, and then when you leave the office, you wonder what the fuck you actually got done? And you can't think of one good thing? That's the kind of week I'm having. I feel like I'm busting my ass while I'm standing still. It's just sort of rough.

I don't even know where to start. I guess I'm thinking mostly of this morning, when one of my new temps timidly crawled into my office on all fours, as is protocol. "Emperor, will you grant me a boon? I crave the perfume of the urinal cakes," he croaked. He clawed at his groin and rapped his forehead against my carpet several times.

"Quiet!" I hissed at him. "You'll disturb my bats." This was no way to start a day. I ignored the supine thing groveling before me and continued to feed my Turkish Prune Feasters with eyedroppers of blood, which they sucked on happily, screeching softly with delight. In the corner of my office, Whitney Houston rattled her shackles weakly, but I ignored her: she had displeased me and my bats, whose language she occasionally pleads in. "YEEK! YEEK! GIVE ME AN EGG!" she shrieked. Get fucked, Whitney.

In the meantime, the temp had fallen into a deep slumber, and lay pathetically on the floor, snoring deeply. I kicked him roughly in the ribs, shouting, "What is it, dumpy?" He jolted awake with an apologetic grunt. "Sorry, boss," he said, shooting terrified glances at Whitney Houston, who had begun unsteadily crooning "Got My Mind Set On You" and knocking a discarded shoe against her head. "It's just that . . . well . . . the copier died. And you know what that copier means to us. We can't cure cancer without it."

Damn! He was right. I kicked him in the ribs again and luxuriated in his painful moan. "You know what this means," I said to nobody in particular. "We're going to have to go through the army of Vampire Ann Coulters That Vomit Safety Pins." I reached for my whiskey bottle and took a swig. The temp urinated feebly on my carpet, but I barely noticed. "Let's move," I said.

I grabbed my trusty stapler and bounded into the hallway, where I was immediately met by a bat-winged Ann Coulter, who vomited a deadly jet of safety pins at me, screaming "Al Gore is going to fuck your neck! Pay attention!" I hurled the stapler and scored a dirct hit on her forehead, and she fell, flopping like trout.

"Soil is insulting!" howled another Ann Coulter, her leathery wings beating the air. She fell on the unhappy temp remorselessly, apparently unconcerned with genitourinary sanitation. I forgave the demon its gruesome repast, and fixed on the copier.

"F3! F3!" I screamed to the aether. Where in the hell was F3? The diagram made no sense, and I felt like I was digging around in the guts of an unfamiliar android. Which I suppose I was. I could still dimly hear Whitney's cries for eggs, and it grated on my ragged nerves. To make matters worse, the zombie Ann Coulters were weakly battering at the door, chanting "NUD! NUD! NUD!"

It's been a long week.