by Huss…
If you were a superhero, what would your ArchNemesis be like? And would you capitalized ArchNemesis or leave it archnemesis to put him/her/it in his/her/its place?
….
Dear Huss,
Enemies? I am sorry to say I have many. Even though I am Type-AB, White personality (motivated by peace), there yet remains people out there seeking to destroy peace, humor, happiness, justice, and the American way.
They form a little something I like to call The League of Miscreants.
Before I begin, Allow me to introduce the League of Miscreants as now presently constituted, just so you can appreciate their leader, my soon-to-be-imagined arch nemesis.
1. All Jeffs. This includes my co-worker, Jeff Anderson. Just look at that monster.
Jeff Bartholomew.
I once tried to melt him by throwing a garbage bag full of water into his stall when he was using our dorm bathroom. And yes, even Donnie Jeffcoat, former host of the Nickelodeon game show Wild and Crazy Kids.
2. Nathan Toone – We are love rivals, pitted one against the other. Always trying to date the same women. He knows it, I know it, and now the American people know it.
3. BYUSA – Just because they keep trying to give me reasons not to hate them.
4. The Lazer Tag place on 4oo N and 100 W. All I can say of this once happy place is that they will allow physical violence in their arena rather than lose $8 by kicking out people who throw punches over a silly game. The only thing necessary for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. This place employs cowards, and allows violent alpha males to reign. Even more than belligerence, I detest cowardice. They ruined Dane and Casey’s birthday for me. I’m not going back until someone is fired.
5. Tunnel Singers – No explanation required.
6. The cleaning check ladies at Foxwood apartments and condos. – They are the great perpetuators of social injustice, and perspicacious persnicketry. The only misfeasors I have ever seen who actually don’t even mind in the least that they are getting caught in their act of most abominable conduct. Their racket includes giving you a strict list of things to do in order to pass cleaning checks. They come in and inspect to see if you fulfilled all the tasks on the list. If you fail, or rather, if they say you fail, they “clean” it themselves (this usually is one additional wipeover with a paper towel), and charge you a premium rate for their so-called services. Some problems with this: they are free to fail anyone they want, work as much as they want, and charge as much as they want. This is far too much power for one person to have: to have permission from Foxwood management to enter into my apartment, tell me that my standard of living is unsatisfactory, then work for an unbounded amount of time at a nonnegotiable price, only to leave my apartment no better than it was before they came in. The cleaning checker gets to keep the money she takes by failing the renter. Thus, the cleaning checker has the incentive to fail as many people as she can. That is to say, she has the incentive to cheat. And she does. Since there is no independent auditor to check her work, the renter always loses in this situation. She will always have a job because she has the ability to scare renters into scrubbing until their finger joints snap backwards and then she need only wipe over a job already done and claim it as her own work. Shame on you, cleaning check lady. Shame on you.
I give a personal example: I spent more than an entire working day to do one of my assignments. I was scheduled to be inspected the day of my brother’s graduation ceremony. I had to work all day, miss his graduation, only to fail anyways. One of my assignments was to clean the kitchen floor. I swept, I mopped, I scrubbed on hands and knees every visible trace of uncleanness, mopped again, swept again, mopped yet again with bleach, and I was barely able to pass the fourth time around because I was looking right over her shoulder and she “let this one slide” as if her allowing me to pass was some kind of a gift only bestowed upon me because of her merciful nature. Oh, please!
Second example: My roommate, Dexter, was unable to schedule a cleaning checkout time before the time he was due to leave for Malaysia. He paid some friends $100 to make his apartment inspection-ready. They two of them came and, after a few hours of work, thoroughly fulfilled all the requirements on the sheet. When the inspector came along, she shook her head, tsk tsk’d the job, and then used a paper towel to wipe over a few things. Her report of her work literally was “just some touch ups.” Her charge: $32.50! She charged $32.50 to wipe a paper towel over the corners of our drawers, touching all of our utensils with her unwashed, toilet-scrubbing hands all along the way.
Truly, the enemy is here and, alas, I am forced to fight the battles within the walls of my own home against an enemy that must think itself ever so noble for being a working mother who has ventured outside her home to take on such an onerous livelihood. I respect those who work dirty jobs for a living. I myself have had to pump gas, scrub floors, dig trenches, break rocks under the hot sun, clean bathrooms, empty garbage, work construction, work demolition all for wages that have not been able to bring me above the official government poverty line. I have had plenty of manual labor. I think manual labor is noble in itself. But taking advantage of poor college students to make a fast buck? Yes, you have a family to feed. Yes, the managers have an interest in keeping their own jobs. Yes, the owners have an investment to protect. Yes, some college students trash their apartments and should be charged accordingly. But you, un-checked, non-independently-audited cleaning check woman, you and I are enemies, and will remain so until you can learn to leave well enough alone.
This day, I do declare war on cleaning checks.
I have to go to work now. But now I’m so mad I can’t even fathom what my arch-nemesis must be like. I always thought it would be some guy who was just slightly funnier than me, slightly smarter, slightly better looking, in all ways just a little better. Except he was a jerk to girls and girls liked him more anyway. That man would get my goat. Especially if he spoke Italian and Russian. And if he was the BYUSA vice-president of some subunit that shouldn’t have been invented by the presidency, like SHA or Human Resources. And he’s probably an accounting major from California. His career aspiration is to become a consultant. He lives in Belmont Apartments and he wears popped collars, wears flip flops year round, and only listens to Jack Johnson (I’m not saying I’m opposed to any of those things myself, that’s just how my arch nemesis is).
And he was good friends with the cleaning check ladies and they always passed him off even though his apartment was atrocious.
My arch nemesis probably plays lacrosse and water polo.
When he goes roller skating, he gets regular skates instead of roller blades and he goes very fast, backwards.
He is likely dating one of my co-workers. They always do.
One time I was in the Wilkinson Center Terrace just doing a little improvisational standup comedy when he suddenly said something like, “….” You see? He didn’t say anything, he knew that all he had to do was to ignore me. It’s like a kid not believing in Santa, it makes Christmas spirit go away.
My arch nemesis likes to go hiking all the time, and hang gliding, and he enjoys hot-tubbing all the time, most of the time at the hot springs.
He probably owns a pair of leather pants.
He has 16/20 vision.
He hates So You Think You Can Dance because he believes that even the best contestants on the show aren’t nearly as good as the worst dancers at Juilliard.
He has probably come to my office before asking for advice.
He probably has a class with me and he asks the professor really stupid multiple choice questions. “So would you say that casinos are responsible for the decline of Native American societies or was dog a doughnut?” The professor is always too nice to tell them that their being admitted to college was a mistake.
He watches America’s Top Model.
I won’t say which political party he’s from. But it’s easy to guess. The same party that is the enemy of every good guy.
How I detest that man!
Ask Josh 