A couple years ago, I spent about six months as one of the lead writers for a humor blog. That site has since gone the way of Michael Bolton’s career, but I did manage to keep a few of my past articles. We were allowed to be as off-the-wall as we wanted (I know, I know, you can hardly believe that I would write something off-the-wall…hey, stop laughing!) and it was a good way to let my id takeover and just write whatever craziness came to mind. So, here’s one of the old articles – a little glimpse into part of my (very weird) writing past.
Death Ray for Sale (Slightly Used)
That’s it! I’m giving up, America. After years of toil and the relentless pursuit of evil, I am the without doubt the worst super-villain in the history of everything. I’ve tried to pretend, but I can’t hide it anymore – it’s over.
I first learned the advantages of an evil-centric lifestyle during childhood. It was second grade, and little Derek Mann had just knocked me down and called me a sissy. Granted, I had just cried for an hour after learning my entire family had been killed in a freak knitting accident, so he might have had a point. I was being kind of a crybaby. But that didn’t stop me from drying my tears, standing up and kicking him into a wood chipper. To this day, I have no clue what a wood chipper was doing on an elementary school playground, but it certainly was convenient. In fact, every day since then, my henchmen bring a wood chipper wherever I go, just in case someone mouths off or brings me the wrong sandwich. For the last time, I SAID NO PUMPERNICKEL!
Life continued about how you’d expect. I bounced between foster homes, forced to keep moving as each family met with knitting or wood chipper-related deaths. Coincidentally, of course. I mean, it’s not like I had anything to do with those unfortunate events. Look, just drop it, okay?! Anyway, I spent six months shining shoes at Grand Central Station, two years running guns for the Yakuza, and four days as a Boy Scout troop leader. Stupid, weakling Boy Scouts with their “no stories about federal prison” and their “no battles to the death”. Moving on from there, I toppled my first government and assumed the throne of a tiny country nestled somewhere between Mongolia and South Dakota. The natives called me Kawonda Nacho Dorito Cheewah, which loosely translated means “the pasty white doom who raised his fist in defiance of the gods and wrested supreme power from our previous overlord, six-year-old Billy Anderson of Madison, Wisconsin”.
Life was looking up! I was on my way to becoming a real, bona fide super-villain. That is until……..he showed up. The bane of my existence – yes, it was the dreaded super hero. Ugh, why do they all have to wear spandex? Do they hope our gag reflex will keep us from fighting back?? The dreaded Particle Man had the ability to explode into tiny, meaty chunks, and then put himself back together. Now, that may sound like a lame power, but you try getting a chunk of super hero in your mouth while making a grandiose villain’s monologue, and see if you’re feeling particularly evil afterwards. To make a long story short (too late), I lost my kingdom and my respect in the villain community. I’d forgotten who I really was. Even unnecessary wood chipper deaths no longer amused me.
It was then that the final blow came. The accursed Particle Man turned out to be Derek Mann from second grade, who through some insane coincidence I had kicked into a magical wood chipper. That’s right, I gave my nemesis the powers that would eventually destroy me. Why on earth would anyone enchant a wood chipper?! Somewhere along the way, I forgot what a powerful force irony can be.
I have to confess, America, I snapped. So I scraped together what savings I’d hidden at the Third Bank of Doom and bought the biggest secondhand death ray I could find. After mounting it on my ’87 Honda, I prepared to destroy the world and end my suffering. That is, until Particle Man crawled into the barrel and exploded! It took three weeks to clean him out of the firing assembly, and by then Interpol had managed to track me down. I escaped with the ray, but didn’t even get to kick one government agent into a wood chipper!
I’ve failed you, America. I’m not the global threat I swore to be, and you deserve to be conquered by better villains. I don’t even care anymore. So the first person to email me with a reasonable offer for the death ray, it’s yours. Take it off my hands today and I’ll throw in a crate of wood chippers.