Hit Peace

After checking my most recent text messages from unreliable sources, it appears my suspicions are correct – a highly prestigious news outlet will be publishing a hit piece on me later this afternoon. Why me? You’d have to ask them. But apparently, smart, wise, and otherwise unstable writers are all the rage right now.

Before you read it, there are a few things I should clear up. One ancedote, at the top of the article, references how I once stopped a big meeting protesting the existence of potato salad. This is far from the truth. What I said, and I stand by, is that dishes like potato, chicken, and tuna salad are not salads in the modern sense. Mustard greens are a natural thing from the earth, while mayo greens are not. Perhaps in the Eisenhower years, when the threat of the bomb loomed over every meal, filling a tray with assorted condiments and a few sprigs of parsley could still constitute a salad. In a world like that, where tomorrow was clouded by pluming mushrooms, I can understand it. But not today, when we know so much more about greens. And I didn’t stop a meeting – I called one to express my dismay over bi-weekly “salad days” offering no expectation of verdancy.

In another tortured section of the piece, the author claims I once threw a lawn chair out of a 7^th story window. First of all, it was a desk chair. Why would a lawn chair be in an office? I don’t work at a vacation resort. If the author will twist the truth in this way, what won’t they do? 

The author repeats a bit of gossip, stemming from my use of the phrase “shape up or ship out.” Apparently, an intern who caught this piece of verbal shrapnel, quit the industry upon overhearing this. As it turns out, I use this phrase whenever I come across subpar packaging by the folks in the mail room. It’s our little inside joke. The only other time I said it was during Fleet Week. But that’s another story entirely. 

You might be under the impression that a hit piece is full of lies and untruths. Not so. A hit piece is a collection of personal items that the subject doesn’t like or want to hear. 

So please read with this in mind. What are the odds I’m right about everything? About the same odds that the author of this piece is lying about everything. While I’m a little worried some people might be swayed by the piece, I have found some solace in the fact that few people read anymore.