Someone asked me what life under Fascism would be like.

You wake on a mattress previously owned by someone who was killed by the state for failing to seig heil fast enough. You were very lucky to win it through the state run lottery. Your alarm is the blaring of air raid sirens at 5 AM, and you don the jacket you had used as a blanket to fight off the ever present chill in your unheated room. If you sleep in, guards will break down your door and shoot you in the head for betraying The Cause.

Leaving your door open and unlocked, for easier searching by Labor Enforcement, you march down to the street and join the throngs of people exiting their homes. As you exit the building you are handed what is essentially a Power Bar in unmarked wax packaging to eat on the way to work. The wax is edible, sort of, but you're not that hungry this morning so you pocket it for later.

You work at a Solution Factory in Resource Reclamation. If you are lucky you will find enough teeth with gold fillings to earn lunch that day. Today is a good day and you meet your quota. Lunch is a weak soup and something that tastes like unsweetened energy drink, but with meth so you can focus on your job and not be distracted by hunger.

Hey, it's your friend Steve. Steve works in Materials Processing. His hands are always covered in ink because he tattoos serial numbers onto the Problems as they're inventoried. Steve waves at you from across the lunch room. Seconds later, guards swarm him and he is taken away for questioning about why he would make such an extroverted gesture. You never see Steve again.

It is now 3 PM. You are allowed a 10 minute break to use the bathroom. A guard stares intently at you as you shit. His job, among other things, is to ensure that you do not use a decadent amount of toilet paper. As per your high school education, you fold your 3 squares of toilet paper in half after the first wipe so that you may use them again. The guard counts each section you pull off the roll loudly, and you are required to show the front and backs of each hand before each set of wipes. Last month you were allowed a day off to visit the State Museum because you used the least toilet paper out of anyone in your division. Once you are finished, you stand next to the toilet and salute so that the guard can examine the contents of the bowl before he flushes it. He is checking the size and consistency of your stool to ensure you are not stealing food or drinking contraband liquor.

8 PM rolls around. Work is over! You are allowed 30 minutes of supervised personal time in the town square. You and a few friends accidentally stand too close to another group of people and the guards beat you for, as they describe it, "conspiring like Jews."

The half hour passes. It is now time for the silent walk back to your apartment. What a day! You reclaimed so much gold, and you even found a pace maker! You know it contains something called plutonium, and you know the state thinks plutonium is good. You don't know know why though, because you were beaten severely the first and only time you ever asked why it was good. The air sirens blast the national anthem as you fall asleep on your precious, precious mattress in your otherwise bare room.

It is now 2 AM. You wake up and require use of the bathroom. You press a button on the wall and await the Bathroom Guard to escort you. He arrives 15 minutes later. He is especially fast for you because you sometimes smuggle him a tooth as a bribe. He hints that he will allow you the time and privacy necessary to masturbate on your next escorted restroom break if you bring him a breakfast bar, but your education was focused on the duties required of a good citizen so you don't know what he's talking about. After he radios in the amount of toilet paper you used to Central Resource Management, you go back to bed and have dreams of the glorious future you and your people are working toward.

Passing Helicopter Enthralls Montreal

Montreal, Canada. By John Straunheimer

Residents of Montreal stopped still in their tracks to enjoy a rarely seen spectacle: The miracle of heavier than air flight. Sources say the helicopter, which was described as black and surrounded by a semi-transparent circle, entered the city's air space around 2:57 PM, passing directly overhead and leaving the city at approximately 3:03 PM. It was unclear as to where it was coming from and where it was going.

Traffic came to a halt as Montrealians exited their homes and cars to gaze upward, and schools emptied as teachers shepherded their children out to see the strange and wonderful sight.

"It was so nice," said Monique Depieux, 5th grade teacher, "We'd just begun our studies on flight and it was really nice for the children to see it in real life. Now the children believe it's possible."

But some were less enthused about the unexpected aerial event, such as Pierre LeBlanc, a 65 year old retired mime.

"It's just not polite. I bet a lot of people didn't get to see it. If you're going to do something like that, you should tell people. If my dogs hadn't been going crazy I would have missed it."

And indeed, there has been a great deal of contention regarding the issue. Some Montrealitans believe that a prior announcement would have made the event less magical. Others argue that it's more important that everyone should get a chance to share in such an event. Jane DePardieux, councilwoman for South Montreal, sides with the latter group.

"Regardless of how people feel about it, this happened. It was a magical day for everyone, one we'll tell our children about. But Canada can not be stuck in the past. We must look toward the future."

And if Councilwoman DePardieux's opinion is representative of the majority, then all of Montreal is looking for that future over the horizon.

Ms. Depardieux continued, "It has to be going somewhere. And it has to come back at some point. This isn't the last we'll see of the helicopter."

My sad childhood

It's getting harder and harder to get into the Student Center on campus, especially with friends. I tell them I'm going around the corner to smoke, except they just stare at me and go inside because they know I don't smoke. Then it's just me and my feared enemy: the revolving door. The door that single handedly ruined my childhood. It still haunts me to this day. I have horrible nightmares where I enter one and then the doors stop moving, trapping me inside. Geen liquid oozes out of the sides of the door, I touch it and it burns my skin. I realize it's stomach acid and I scream, pounding my hands against the glass belly of the beast, trying to escape. I always wake up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding a mile a minute, and I know that though the dream is over the nightmare never ends.

But back to how these doors ruined my life. My father created the tool of his own destruction, for he was the genius who designed the revolving door. At the time, he was a strong contender for the Nobel prize in engineering for designing a door that not only expedited both in and out traffic through a building, but also increased heating/cooling efficiency. For a revolving door exists within a strange limbo where it is never closed and never open, and this abomination of nature is conducive to retaining both heat and cold. It was at the grand unveiling of the first prototype door at a military base where everything went horribly wrong.

I remember when the General handed my father the golden over sized novelty scissors and how they reflected the light of the sun like liquid gold. My father raised them above his head and turned to the crowd to deliver his stirring speech,

"Ladies, gentlemen, today is the dawning of a new era. My hydraulically powered Revolv-U-Matic Indoor-Outdoor Rapid Transit System will revolutionize the way we enter and exit buildings. They told me that the door was already perfect, that it couldn't be improved. Well, ten billion dollars in military spending and my genius proved them wrong!" At this point he had to wait for the applause to die down.

"Ladies and gentlemen, behold the future!" My father cut the red ribbon in front of revolving door as the audience stared in awe and cameras flashed in all directions. My father looked at me riding on my mother's shoulders above the crowd. I was only four at the time, and he waved to me as he gave the door its inaugural push. The plan was for him to push his way through the door once and return to his original position so he could field questions from the press. But his hand became stuck as he waved to me. All I remember is him screaming in pain and the hiss of the hydraulics as they struggled to move the door. I closed my eyes and I heard a "thump" noise. I didn't open them, because even at my tender age I knew what it was: my father's dismembered hand falling to the ground. A little hand sized chunk of me died that day, along with my dreams.

That was the beginning of the end. The shameful unveiling of a decades long research project was a terrible black eye to the Pentagon that had to be covered up, and this meant that my father's career as a military research was over. Even worse, that was his wrestling hand. That meant he couldn't fall back on his old thumb wrestling career to support us. My family spent the next fourteen years living in a car, and my world shrank as the doors of Chicago were replaced by Revolve-U-Matics.

God damn the revolving door, for it surely guards the entrance to Hell. 

Midnight Otto the Truck Stop Men's Room Clown

Ralph was a trucker, and like every trucker he sometimes suffered from the occupational hazard of loneliness. It was 1 A.M. on a Thursday morning and Ralph had been driving all day long. Though he was tired, the appearance of a blue sign informed him of a rest area one mile ahead. Ralph perked up; maybe he wouldn't be sleeping alone tonight. He pulled off the interstate into the parking lot, and once he'd found a space he folded his Yosemite Sam mud flaps into the wheel well; trucker code for “I'm looking for a good time.” Hopefully, Ralph thought, one of the other truckers would notice it and join him in the men's room. He was happily married with children, but the emptiness of road often filled his mind with desires that couldn't be met by his wife due to geographical differences.

Ralph found a clean stall and sat himself down on the toilet as he waited. Having nothing to do, he scanned the graffiti that lined the walls. Most of it was faded, illegible, or both, but one scrawled recently in black permanent marker caught Ralph's eye. In large, loopy letters it read: “For a good time call Midnight Otto.”

“Eh, I got nothing to lose,” thought Ralph as he entered the number into his cell phone. The phone beeped, signaling its intention to dial, and Ralph's heart raced as the phone rang once, then twice, before Ralph was startled by a noise in the stall to his right. A cacophonous clanging of xylophones, blaring saxophones, and raucous drumming assaulted his ears at a tempo almost fast enough to match the beat of his own surprised heart. The initial shock caused by this unexpected explosion of sound soon changed to bewildered interest as Ralph attempted to place the song. The song continued for a few more seconds, and once the violins came in a sudden feeling of recognition swept over his mind; it was “The Merry Go Round Broke Down”, the same song that had introduced the Looney Tunes shorts he had loved so much as a child.

“Must be a ringtone,” thought Ralph. The song ended abruptly, and Ralph was surprised again by a voice speaking directly into his left ear. In his shock, he'd forgotten that he was still holding the cell phone.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss?” Said a voice not unlike Snagglepuss's. It was effeminate and constantly switched from high to low pitch. “Can I heeeelp you?” the voice asked in stereo through the cell phone in Ralph's left hand and the stall to his right.

“I... I'm looking for a good time?” Ralph didn't understand why he'd stated it as a question. The absurdity of the past moment had sent his mind reeling.

“I don't know, aaaarre you?”

“Uh. Yes. Yes, I am. Is this Midnight Otto?” The call ended abruptly and the phone went silent. Two quiet honks alerted Ralph to a pair of over sized, garishly colored clown shoes in the next stall that had not been there a few seconds ago. They were purple and yellow and had plastic daisies glued to the tips. Small, black rubber bulbs attached to tiny horns protruded from underneath the heels. “Was he standing on the toilet the entire time?” Ralph wondered. He stared at them in amazement, unsure of what would happen next, feeling as if the door to the restroom had led him to some parallel universe where anything was possible. Several seconds passed in a tense silence and Ralph was drawn back to reality by the sound of the next stall unlocking. Slowly, almost dramatically, the clown shoes exited the stall.

Honk... honk... honk... The shoes reappeared beneath the door to Ralph's stall. Their owner knocked on the door; shave and a hair cut: two bits. It was too late to back out now, Ralph realized. Whether he liked it or not he was going to meet Midnight Otto. He rose from his seat, pocketed the cellphone, and opened the door slowly.

Ralph was greeted by a clown dressed in an over sized single piece clown suit. Its loud color scheme of shiny reds and blues assaulted his eyes. The midsection was large enough to hold two, maybe three clowns, while the sleeves and leggings tapered closer to the skin as they extended outward to a pair of silken white gloves. A series of comically large and mismatched buttons on the chest area led Ralph's eyes upward to a painted white face marked with a gigantic red smile.

Ralph stared at the clown. The clown stared at him. Having met Midnight Otto, Ralph was now unsure of what to do. Ralph's jaw lowered slowly, as if trying to speak, but hung there uselessly as the words refused to come out. Otto slowly put his hands out, showing Ralph his palms. He flipped them around to show Ralph their backsides. Then, as a magician would, he pulled back his sleeves to reveal that there was nothing hidden there. Taking Ralph's dumbfounded silence as tacit approval that this was not a trick, Otto made a quick flourish with his hands, producing a silver bicycle horn.

Bewildered, intrigued, and just a little bit scared, Ralph stood perfectly still, a statuesque representation of complete and utter shock. Otto, still holding the horn in his hand, slowly covered the distance between the two as if trying to approach a scared animal. Two slow, honking steps later and the clown was inches away from Ralph's face. They continued to stare. A silver flash appeared before Ralph's eyes accompanied by a high pitched honk, which sent Ralph stumbling backward and onto the toilet he had just risen from. The clown's eyes went wide and his eyebrows arched as he put his free hand to his mouth in an overdone, pantomimed apology. The silver horn consumed the entirety of Ralph's attention, and it seemed to float there as if the clown's hand was being supported by it.

Stamped onto the horn's side was the old Sturling bike logo, from the time before they'd switched from selling children's bicycles to manufacturing professional racing cycles. Ralph had once owned one before it had mysteriously disappeared one night. His father told him thieves had taken it, but the bike was untouched and had been locked securely in their garage at the time. The sight of the horn unleashed a flood of childhood memories that swept him away to another time: the over sized shoes on the welcome mat that belonged to no one in particular; waking up late at night to the sound of honking; the way his mother would leave the room when he and his brothers would tune into Bozo the Clown. Ralph couldn't believe it, but he had to ask.

“Ralph Watson Sr.?” Ralph whispered as if ashamed to entertain the idea. Otto's clownish expression contorted to one of genuine shock. His hand went limp and the bicycle horn fell to the floor, punctuating the silence with a feeble honk. Slowly, he turned around and honked his way over to the sinks, supporting himself against one, his back turned to Ralph. The clown's shoulders began to shudder, and in the mirror Ralph could make out tears rolling down the clown's face, leaving white streaks on the painted smile.

“Where have you been all this time?” Ralph slowly approached Midnight Otto from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. Their eyes met in the mirror, both sets wide and wild from the enormous feelings prompted by this miraculously serendipitous meeting. Otto turned around, and the two embraced, hugging each other tightly as if they might be forcibly separated again.

“I'm so sorry,” Midnight Otto whispered into his son's ear, no longer sounding like Snagglepuss, “I just... I just...” Otto let out a deep breath, recomposed himself, and relaxed his grip. He stepped back to get a better look at his son, keeping his hands on Ralph Jr.'s shoulders. His wet, red eyes darting over his son's body, constantly shifting between feelings of sadness and joy, pride and remorse.

The two continued to stare for several moments, each trying to speak but finding it impossible to do so. Outside, a car could be heard pulling up into the rest area, followed by several voices. Father and son stared into each other's eyes; no words were needed. They both knew that they had to separate. Otto returned to his stall and Ralph walked back to his rig. Unable to sleep, he drove until dawn, when he pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot for some much needed rest.

It was Ralph's final route. Upon returning home, he quit his job and began looking for one that would keep him closer to home. The cell phone containing his father's number was returned to the company. Ralph could not bring himself to copy it down, and the act of returning it filled him with a sense of finality that helped him put the entire ordeal behind him.

Several weeks later, Ralph returned home from a job interview to find a small package addressed to him on the doorstep. The return address simply said, “Scenic Arizona Rest Area, Route 40.” He entered the house as quietly as he could, so as not to alert his children or wife to his presence, and made his way down to the basement. With the care of a surgeon, he opened the box with an Exact-o knife and rifled through the packing peanuts until he felt something small and metallic. As he pulled it out the packaging gave way to the shape of a silver bike horn stamped with the old Sturling bike logo.

The Academic Advantage

Last year I was burned by a scam tutoring company. The company is in every legal sense legit, as it receives federal No Child Left Behind funds from the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was an independent contractor and was never employed directly by them. Long story short, I got stuck with an $80 fee for my own background check after it became apparent to me that this was not just a horrible way to make money, but that the company was basically a glorified form processing firm whose contract was filled with so many pitfalls and landmines that it was entirely possible for me to owe them more money than I could make. To put things in perspective, this company offered NCLB tutoring but did not have a single tutor in its employ.

One of the many fees it was possible to incur was the Uncompleted Hours fee. Basically, every child could receive a maximum 34 hours of billable tutoring from the company. If a tutor failed to complete these hours, or was not still tutoring that child by the end of the school year, then they were contractually obligated to pay the company $27 for every hour the company could not bill the LAUSD for.

I was only able to establish contact with one of the three student families assigned to me. Of those two I could not reach, one immediately hung up the phone upon hearing the voice of someone who spoke English as their first language. The other stated that they had not heard from a tutor from my company, The Academic Advantage, in two months. When I attempted to contact them again two days later, I discovered that they had changed their cell phone plan so that they could not receive incoming calls.

The company's prescripted solution to this was to have me drive down to whatever poor, and possibly dangerous, part of Los Angeles these families listed as their address and post a bilingual form on their door notifying them of my identity and intent. Not wanting to expose myself to unnecessary work, gas expenses, or danger, I decided that it would be easier to simply lie about posting said note and have these students dropped. If their families' living situations were anything like the one family I was able to contact then it would have been very difficult for me to find them. They were nice Hondurans, but I would have never found them among the three families that lived in the house I had traveled to if one of their (in-house) neighbors had not noticed me as an outsider with a reason to be there due to my distinctive white skin.

So, naturally, I wanted The Academic Advantage to drop these students from my file so that I would not be held responsible for their unfinished hours. I had tried to reach the company over the phone for several days, and after waiting for a total of forty minutes on hold without reaching anyone I was beginning to become aggravated. Not only was it possible this company might gouge me, but it was going to do so while providing sub-par customer service. Finally, I managed to email someone who actually responded. Here is that conversation:

Academic Advantage,

I, M.C. McMaster of Ceremonies, have made every attempt to contact the following students. Being unable to contact them or convince them to allow me, a complete stranger, into their homes so I may spend time alone with their children, I would like to be absolved of any responsibility for them so I may avoid the ridiculous fees I was constantly threatened with during my brief training.

Here is their info:

[NAME REDACTED]. Student ID#: [NUMBER REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]. Student ID#: [NUMBER REDACTED]

Please remove them from my list of students so your company does not turn to me, someone who technically does not legally work for you, instead of the Los Angeles Unified School District for your money.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

They then asked me why I didn't want to tutor these students. I thought I'd made that pretty clear. I knew that I didn't technically work for these people and that the worst they could do was invalidate my contract. I was not an employee, but a person engaged in a mutually binding contract who rendered a service. As such, I felt that I would add value to my service, completely free of charge mind you, by letting them know my true feelings.

They are impossible to contact and apparently have no wish to be contacted. As of the last time I checked, their cell phones are set so they do not receive incoming calls. Only one of them has an answering machine (with no identifying message). I have attempted to place the bilingual note on their doors but the confusing nature of their places of residence prevented me from being 100% sure whether I had placed it on the correct door. And I'm sure as hell not spending more of my time and my gas money when I'm not technically working for the Academic Advantage.

Regardless of their desire to be contacted or not, I have exhausted all attempts at communication. Therefore, I would like to have them removed from my file so that I can not be held financially liable for not completing or advancing toward the 34 hour mark. I don't know why I should be held liable, but you guys wrote the contract so you don't need to justify it.

In addition, the one student I am tutoring and have managed to contact is severely screwing up any chances I have to find a part time job (a real one, where I am employed by someone). It has added a random element to my schedule and this "job" as an independent-contractor-who-technically-isn't-employed isn't going to pay the bills. And it won't even pay much after $40 are deducted from both of my next paychecks so I could pay for the background check of myself for the privilege of not being legally employed by you.

God, I just hate this shitty fucking company I don't work for and can't be fired from. Please hurry up and assign these kids to some other poorly trained warm body with no criminal history that you guys could drag off the streets and make him financially liable for the completion of their tutoring hours. Further, I don't respect the Academic Advantages's business practices in any way, shape, or form and see it as the afterbirth resultant from another miscarriage of Bush legislation.

To recap why I wish to have them removed from my file:
-I can't contact them, and they don't seem to want to be contacted.
-I do not want to be held financially liable because the Academic Advantage could not get the full 34 hours of payment it wanted from LAUSD
-This shitty not-job is preventing me from getting real jobs
-I hate the Academic Advantage and would prefer if your management choked on a barrel of dicks.

For these reasons and more, I wish to not be held financially liable for the fulfillment of the Academic Advantage contract with LAUSD.

Dictated but not read,

M.C. McEmCee

Crude? Yes. But again, I was a contractor and not an employee. I can speak to them any way I wish providing I do not incite them to violence, incite violence against them, or incite them to violence against our glorious federal government. This elicited a response from a manager and my soon to be buddy whom I affectionately came to know as "Fuckface Fred."

Effective immediately, all students are dropped due to your intolerable and hostile behavior. Send in any paperwork immediately for the 1 student you started tutoring and the number of hours you tutored.

As per the contract you signed, you are not to have any further contact with these families.

This is an unfortunate situation, one in which your abusive language and demeanor will not be tolerated.

Fred A.

Director, Student Support Services Department
The Academic Advantage

No! Please don't give me exactly what I asked for! Don't you dare release me from your ridiculous contract by failing to uphold your end of the bargain!

Still, I wanted Fuckface to outright admit that I wouldn't have to pay the Uncompleted Hours Fee for my own records and future protection.

So, just to be clear, you're preventing me from tutoring them and thus you can't make me pay for any money you couldn't bilk our public education system out of, correct?

That's what I really care about.

I will continue to tutor my remaining student for free just to spite you, as the contract only stated that I could not accept payment for tutoring services outside of our contractual agreement. It didn't say anything about having no contact whatsoever.

Also, before I send in any paperwork, I would like you to point out the relevant part of the contract that requires I should send the paperwork in. Why should I help you make any money? I don't work for you, and therefore we have no common interest.

Shit fuck cunt bloody aborted fetus.

-M.C. McEmCee

Fuckface did not like this, as my efforts to educate a child for free would have eaten into his bottom line. I was actually looking forward to educating this child without the restrictions imposed on me by The Academic Advantage. For example, I would have been able to go over the child's homework and be actively involved in his education. I was actually prohibited from going over the child's homework, as this would not fit the criterion the LAUSD had set forth for the NCLB tutoring payments.

What made this especially retarded was that I had no fucking clue what the NCLB requirements were and The Academic Advantage made no efforts to tell me during training. All I was armed with was a link to an approved website with a shitty game the child could play where he pluralized the same words over, and over, and over.

Fuckface, sensing that federal funds might, even tangentially, elevate a child out of ignorance and poverty, quickly stepped in to quash any notions of hope inside my soul.

You are not to tutor nor contact any of these students effective immediately, as per Liquidated Damages Clause, Section #4 of your contract: “tutor shall not render services, establish or accept contact said clients independent of The Academic Advantage”.

The families involved will be notified that you will no longer be their child’s tutor.

If you don’t send in paperwork, you will not be paid.

At this point, I didn't really care about getting the forty something dollars I was owed. Hell, I hadn't even received the $16 they owed me from the previous month. The intangible benefits of berating Fuckface for working at a shitty company were much more appealing.

Ah yes, I'm reading over Liquidated Damages right now and it appears you're right. You've certainly added value to this federal grant money and served students by preventing tutors with established and successful relationships with students from having any contact whatsoever. It's wonderful to see how efficiently taxpayer money can be used when taken out of the hands of federal government and disbursed to private enterprise. You have added so much value to my money.

Anyway, Fred, you never answered my question. Am I completely absolved of all financial responsibility for my students' tutoring hours? If I continue to receive no answer or only vague answers from you I will have no choice but to take precautions against future financial harm by bringing this matter to the attention of the Better Business Bureau (who has given your company a B rating). That way there will be information on file should the matter ever come up.

Further, I don't need your filthy money. Your company works through independent contractors who are just as likely to end up owing you money rather than the other way around. This puts you in such wonderful company as Vector/Cutco, Prepaid Legal, and Herbalife. Fine, fine, company.

Unfortunately, your lawyers only saw fit to add provisions to your contract penalizing me financially if I turned in forms late. They did not have the foresight to add provisions that penalized me for not turning in the information at all. Live, learn, and scam the next batch of warm bodies you drag in to your Boiler Room office through Craigslist.

Fuckface finally admitted that, yes, I was absolved of all financial liability. I then informed him that I had filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I expected nothing to come of it, I just thought it would be fun. And it was. We bounced it back and forth for a few weeks and I needlessly wasted their time for my own amusement. I could post it here, but it would add substantially to this already long story.

Flash forward through the rest of the year. The Academic Advantage never took me off their mailing list, and sent me several mass emails which were all followed up by mass retractions. Literally, not a single mass email was ever successfully sent by this company. Wait, I take that back. They did manage to send out a "Thank you to all of our tutors!" email at the very end, several days before I received this email:

Re: Unfinished hours. Please reply ASAP

M.C. McEmCee:

We are contacting you in regards to a potential breach of the contract you signed with us. The amount owed for not completing all hours assigned to you is $40.5. The following are the names of the students whose hours were not completed, as well as the number of hours short, as of the initial review of the paperwork for the month of May.

* [NAME REDACTED]– 1.5 Hours Short
* – Hours Short
* – Hours Short
* - Hours Short
* - Hours Short
* - Hours Short

Per the contract, “Tutor shall be required to pay The Academic Advantage twenty-seven dollars ($27) per hour for each hour that Tutor is short of the NCLB Hours”

Please contact us as soon as possible as we will process your payment 6 business days from today.

Sincerely,

Aracely C.
Student Support Services
The Academic Advantage

Aracely was probably less than enthused to receive this reply to what she probably assumed was a standard gouging statement.

You worthless, incompetent fucks.

I already have several emails from one your managers, Fred "Cum Guzzling Cock Mongerer" A., absolving me of all financial responsibility for unfinished hours because you idiots decided to terminate my contract. I will not be giving your worthless tax dollar siphoning scam company a god damned dime, you worthless gaggle of hairless apes.

Please kindly choke on a dick.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

I then placed a call to the company and, again, was unable get through to them. Luckily, I still had Fred's extension and was able to leave a kindly voice mail telling him to "get the fuck on this, Fred, and get your company's shit together." Soon, I was delighted to receive this email:

RE: Committee Decision

Dear M.C. McEmCee,

After review of your file, the committee has decided that the short hours for the following students were not a result of your actions.

· [NAME REDACTED]

Your payment will be released with the next set of tutor payment direct deposits.

For further inquiries regarding payments, please contact our Invoicing and Payment department at extension 395.

We appreciate your patience.

Aracely C.
Student Support Services Representative
The Academic Advantage

There was no committe, this I know for certain. I used to work at an online retailer and we would do the same thing so that people would think they were receiving more customer service than they actually were. I would put people on hold while I talked to the "engineering department," which was really just one guy sitting at the desk directly behind me who actually knew how our products worked. Still, I really liked the idea of a hastily convened committee of dipshits gathering around a highly polished table to read my crude email aloud before discussing the matter of the $27 I supposedly owed them.

Note: At this time, I was unaware that Aracely was a common name for Latino (or Hispanic? Whatever) females.

Dear boy or girl whose name does not offer any clues as to their gender,

That's God damned right I don't owe you incompetent gaggle of shitwits any money. Now, who is this committee of simpering dolts who "decide" things? Since you've already got everyone in this "committee" sitting around pawing ineffectively at their own balls, why don't you have them withdraw the $80 fee for the background check that I supposedly owe you?

I hope you feckless herd of shitheels choke on a barrel of dicks so that your useless company can stop bilking the LAUSD and average people out of time and money for your useless, value-decreasing services.

Your entire company is filled with simpletons who can't even send out a God damned mass email without immediately having to follow up with a mass retraction. You are all fucking morons of the highest caliber, and your very existence is a constant reminder that we are all descended from apes.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

By this point, I had resolved not to pay for the background check on principal. If they wanted to send a collection agency after me then fine, let them. If they wanted to put a black mark on my credit record then fine, let them. Having done some research on bill collections agencies, I had learned that the only way a collection agency could collect from me in California was to take me to a Los Angeles Superior Court. Even if they forced me to cover their court costs, they would lose far more than the $80 they would receive in effort and time by pursuing the matter in court.

Two months later I then received a letter from a collection agency stating that I owed the $80. It was not a very convincing letter, as it politely asked me to sign said letter and admit that I did indeed owe this money. They did not even have the decency to attach any sort of debt identification number or other bureaucratic niceties to the sum I supposedly owed, something I assume is required of a legitimate debt, presumably because whatever contract I had signed with The Academic Advantage was not legitimate. Hell, The Academic Advantage training conductor had told me the sum would be removed directly from our bank accounts with the information we'd provided them. Hence, the need to politely ask me to admit that I did indeed owe this money.

To demonstrate my utter contempt for this company I replied with the following letter:

And thus the saga came to a close, with no further contact from The Academic Advantage or AmerAss. I basically acted like a big jerk who reneged on a (non-binding) contractual agreement and was both vindicated, validated, and rewarded for it in terms of how much fun I had writing this and the previous emails. I am also proud to be a statistical anomaly who cost The Academic Advantage more money than they made off of me.

The only lesson I learned, which rings true for me to this day, is that the crazier, meaner, and filthier my emails are the better the customer service I get from faceless corporations. Remember: businesses set up customer service systems to streamline processes and limit your choices. But, by being a monkey wrench in the cogs of the machine, you are guaranteed individual attention and service. Why, whenever I think of going through the normal channels when dealing with large corporatins such as Bank of America or Verizon Wireless I am reminded of Oliver Twist:

"Please sir, I want some more customer service."

"More!??!? You want MOOOOOREEE!?!?!?!?!"

-MC^3