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I pensively sipped my General Foods International Coffee-like beverage, forked up another cold, greasy globule of leftover huevos rancheros, and masticated morosely upon the dank, ripe compost of my once bright-eyed and rosy-bottomed dreams. My bold ambitions to become the next Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, Prairie Dog Companion guy or Gabriel Garcia Marquez had spiraled slowly down the circular file, and the final, glottal swallow of the flushing mechanism told me they probably weren’t coming back. A thick, bubbling, black bean soup of despair cooed to me like the most degenerate and importunate of lovers, and part of me yearned to surrender to its obliterating, two-backed embrace.
But something tough, stringy, chewy and full of gristle still lodged inside me as stubbornly as a hairball in the esophagus. I might yet squeak my defiance and shake my tiny fist in the disdainful mugs of all the friends, relatives, bloggers, agents, editors and members of the general population who had spat so enthusiastically in my face. Raising my eyes fearfully, I considered once again the incandescent words of hope radiating from my monitor:
“Great Things Start with a Career at Yum! Brands.
Because this is a place where great people are in great company. Where the fun is in the work. And the work offers personal challenge and growth. Yum Brands, Inc., the parent company of A&W Restaurants, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell …”
Against my will, a fierce driblet of desire leapt up within my clogged and stunted heart, and I asked myself for the thousandth time:
“Do I have what it takes to be a Yum! Brands Man?”
I didn’t think I could live with another failure, but that’s what I had said before the last dozen failures. No one saw the nougies, boo-boo’s and ow-ies hidden beneath the shining armor, leather jerkin and audacious codpiece. Lord knows, I wasn’t made of stone or steel, Formica, Corian or Bakelite, only fragile and deliquescent sinew, bone and mucous membranes; also a dwindling tuft of listless hair. I knew all too well that there were only 128 highly sought after Yum! Brands openings within a three mile radius of where I now sat, mouth sagging agape, body rigid with new and terrifying visions of greatness.
“Would you like cheese on that, ma’am?”
Few are chosen, and they strut like veritable demi-gods upon an increasingly midget-peopled planet. The odds that I would be invited to join this swaggering band of heroes were pitiably, absurdly, laughably low … But still, even as I slumped - depressed, mopish, cranky and emasculated (the last, a well-deserved lesson from Jeannine for forgetting to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube during her period) - I realized I could no more give up the battle for fame, honor and a few encouraging pats upon my withered hindquarters, than I could rid myself of the painful furunculi where the seams of my underwear rubbed. Uh uh, no can do. Henry Panky wasn’t built that way.
I might feign a cavalier, lip-curling, finger-sniffing nonchalance, but the unavoidable truth was that I ached, hungered and lusted, I wiggled, jiggled and nervously giggled to wear the proud, peaked, paper hat of a Yum! Brands Management Trainee.
“You all have a Yum! fun dandy day!”
It all came down to this: it was up to me to earn a crack at this most unimaginable of opportunities. But if I did prove myself at the fry station and bun warmer, the condiment display and the pizza fingers buffet, then I would deserve the right to wear the regal and resplendent KFC/Taco Bell uniform, cocky as any medal-hung fly boy. Ten-hut! Standing tall before the bobble-headed car-doggy collection of my dead father, for the first time unafraid of the unsparing judgment of those bouncing, plastic heads, I’d snap the sharpest of salutes and shout, “Papaw, sir! Your ‘puny, dick-less, yellow-bellied, little ass-bag’ made good after all. Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”
Then after throwing my cap into the sky to the wild cheers of my classmates, I’d heave Debra Winger over my shoulder and stride out the paper bag factory to the soaring music of crazy Joe Cocker singing, “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong.”
Now that, my friend, is a dream worth dreaming.
By Henry E. Panky
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