Wouldja believe it

Last Tuesday I had a job interview at the place I've been temping for the past several weeks. The interview went pretty well; I didn't say anything terribly stupid, and despite being at the start of a nasty cold, I managed not to spray the place with sneezle juice. I wanted the job but not desperately, which helps with the nonchalance. I was marginally witty at key moments, and the atmosphere was one of convivial colleagues rather than sycophantic wanna-be sucks up to potential boss-persons. A pleasant change.

Wednesday the cold could no longer be ignored, and I called in sick. Thursday I made it in, only to be told, "Yes, we likely would have given you the job, but yesterday the entire department got downsized and will be closing in the next few months."

Well, color me crabby.

Did I mention that the place I've been working at is a venerated institution, readying to celebrate an impressive number of years in business (as in "more than a century"); the kind of place your grandmother invested in in 1956 to ensure a comfortable nest egg, a place with decades of steady growth, layer upon layer of successes and quietly impressive gains? It took me less than 24 hours to close it down.

It's a family thing. We have the worst timing since that guy moved his wife and children to Pompeii so they'd "get a good view of that interestingly smoky mountain." Let me explain: for a reasonably bright and educated bunch of people, we have the worst possible luck when it comes to making big decisions at the right time. My brothers spent many years and many dollars and an enormous amount of personal blood, sweat and etc. to make a movie in which dog-fighting 747 airplanes engage in a firefight in New York City, accidentally bombing a couple of towers. When was the movie finished? September 10. 2001. Think about it.

Just about any time my father invests in a company, it’s certain to lose value almost immediately, often long-term, occasionally fatally. Recently, my parents and brothers partnered up for a little speculative property buying. Not a month later we had the crash of the housing market. Well, of course.

Operating on the belief that there’s got to be a way to turn the curse into a blessing, I give you this list of positions for which I plan to apply:

Michael Vick’s lead defense lawyer
Head of Republican National Committee
George W’s Secretary of Defense
Huckabee Hound’s Campaign strategist
Lead NRA congressional lobbyist
Head of Marketing, National Right to Life Organization
Ann Coulter’s publicist
Director, National Cattlemen’s Beef Board

I'm hoping to make appearances on Rush Limbaugh's show and celebrate the return of Don Imus. After that, I'm planning to move to either Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. It might be pushing it to see if the Raggedy Curse can shut down an entire national government, but it's either that or move to Texas, and I'm NOT moving to Texas.