Saint Pong, that’s the name of the newsletter. I’m thinking about what to put in the newsletter. I’m at the Halloween party, a great show, my departments, at the back of the factory, have made a castle out of my office, out of shipping crates.
A costume? I had a broken, bald clown mask that I’d popped the eyes, the nose, and the mustache from, and I wore this under my wire rimmed glasses, but I couldn’t see very well through the eye holes, had tunnel vision, so I’d 86’d the mask.
My boss came as a capitalist pig, pig mask and all, red long johns with dollar signs, a yankee doodle dandy outfit, a top hat. He took off his mask to talk to me. Your nice guy millionaire, who was going to see the layoff of all the people he had given health and dental insurance to while he owned the company. The checks had always come, if late on occasion, and they had always cashed: Thanks to his wily ways. This man was nobody’s fool.
With the mask off, in costume, he looked like the rat at Chuck E Cheese, the kind of rat that kids like, your nice guy, millionaire, capitalist pig kind of rat.
Boss: “Where’s your costume?”
I showed him the eyeballs. Put the mask on.
“Nice,” he says.
“Minimalism, ” I tell him.
He says to me: “You know the Peter Principle?”
Me:” I’m living it. Everybody I know here talks about it all the time!”
Boss: “What do you think?”
Me:”You’re not incompetent. You’re just beginning. You’ll be just fine.”
“Right, ” he says. “Stepping stones.” (He was in to Go.)
Me: “I’m glad to be bailing out of this trip. I’ve got a story about it in the newsletter.”
“Is it funny?” he asked.
“You’re funny, ” I told him. “Nice costume!”
And he was gone like a cool breeze.
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