The Last Serious Thing -- I Fire Mark!

Anyway, the last serious thing I shouted at Mark was, "Your ass is seriously fired, and don't come back -- you or your beard -- if it's the last thing you do!" He stormed out of the garage, thankful he wasn't soaking wet, and seriously slammed the door behind him.

I shot a look at his brother Trade, still sitting there like he meant to continue as a team player, but I knew he'd be torn in his loyalty to his brother. I resolved never to hire siblings ever again for the blog's Board of Editors. But for the present he still remains. Along with Dale and Delilah, our only lady member.

My serious take on Trade, maybe not the last thing I'll say, is that he knows he could lose his position, too, at any time. And having started as one of only two on the second tier, right below me, his is an enviable position. Dale and Delilah are still on the bottom rung. And look at it this way, with Mark out, Trade has the entire second tier all to himself, in the sole position as my immediate underling. The last thing, probably, he'd seriously want to happen is to lose that.

I've now alluded to the issue that came between me and Mark. It's ridiculous, really. There was even a compliment in it for me, but the way he chastised me made me feel he would soon usurp me at the top level.

Mark said this, that he envisioned "our" blog (his word) as the world's "Last Serious Thing." I thought, Whoa! Has the world slid into the mud -- Nazism or whatever -- that fast again? Were all the great blogs, which I'd just read minutes before, already given over to the dark side? Were the libraries all gone? Maybe so! Their policy of restricting 17-year-olds to the Children's Room was certainly evil. Then of course we had the Republican party "governing" based on a philosophy of vandalism. Maybe I was "The Last Serious Thing!" Thank you, Mark.

But then he lit into me. That I was throwing it all away, and that only he seemed to know what we needed. And that if I didn't get the job done, someone else would step in and do it! I was seething, but asked what he meant.

He scolded me for not posting for two days earlier in the week, two days off -- calling that "abdication." Then he declared how "repulsed" he was that when I posted again it was a "frivolous" post on men with beards not going out in the rain. He questioned that as being "inaccurate, a lie," and pointed to his own beard as all the evidence he needed that he knew better. If I'd wanted to do a story on beards, he said, I should've asked him or his brother!"

Of course this was a personal attack on me. Just because I didn't have a beard! Well, I'm sorry, but I like walking in the rain!

Then I turned his Original Sin against him: "You want 'The Last Serious Thing', Mark? How about this? You never deserved a second tier position! I only gave it to you because of your brother! How's that for serious? And what did you do? You went both ways! You saw me just above you, very easy to knock off, and you saw Delilah right below you, right where you wanted her! I thank God Dale is still on her level, the last serious defense against a predator like you!"

He was about to erupt when I accused him of seriously desiring a filthy three-way with him, his brother, and Delilah on my kitchen table. When he said he couldn't even "imagine" such a thing, I had him. "You're imagining it right this second, your brother getting her good and worked up, then you pulling him back to finish her off yourself! And it's a terrible picture, the thought of you, pasty white in the nude with that hideous beard!"

This was almost more than he could stand. And I knew we were in for the last serious showdown. He pulled out his beard-trimming shears and moved me back, back, back, as far as I could go in the garage. He meant to cut me down to size, when I reached over for my own weapon, stashed there just for a scene like this, a bucket of water!

Mark immediately dropped the shears and backed up, knowing a bucket of water to the beard would be his end. That sucker would mat up and instantly strangle him! I kept it up, sloshing it around, and glared at him, saying, calmly but threateningly, "Your ass is seriously fired, and don't you come back if it's the last thing you do, you or your beard!"

With him gone, and only nervous Trade, Dale, and Delilah, and me remaining, I thought I'd end the board meeting on a friendly note: "If any of you have any other good ideas for the blog, please feel free to share them with me."