ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME ... THE OVERQUALIFIED IDIOT

A train wreck. A train wreck full of orphaned children and nuns. A train wreck full of orphaned children, nuns, cute little kittens and Mother Teresa wearing the engineer's cap.

It was UGLY.

I have no idea what my problem is other than to say that I just LOSE IT when I go on job interviews for jobs I want. I try to say things that the employer wants to hear and end up saying things that make me sound like a psychotic half man/half mutant.

I get to the office and there's no receptionist.

I stand there for 10 minutes, waiting for someone to come greet me and tell me to sit down because (JOB INTERVIEW RULE #1)you do not sit down until you're told to sit down.

I do my patented fake cough to get someone's attention.

Nobody budges.

I do my patented fake hacking and sputtering cough which makes me sound like I'm the poster child for pneumonia.

Nothing.

Finally, it's 9 a.m. and time for my interview and there's nobody around.

I get bold and walk back around the front wall and start strolling down the hallway.

I find a woman in an office.

Who is counting stacks of cash.

And who looks genuinely frightening that a strange hulking man is standing in her doorway while she has thousands of dollars on her desk.

I easily could have knocked her over the head with a blackjack, scooped up the stacks of $20s and hauled ass.

Alas, I wasn't carrying my blackjack because (JOB INTERVIEW RULE #2) it's best not to carry blackjacks to your job interview unless it's a job interview for thug.

So I ask her where Bleepity Bleep was and she was all "I ... I ... I ... please don't steal all this cash."

Jeez Louise.

Just get my interviewer here NOW, CRAZY LADY!

The interviewer is meeting with the top dog, the head cheese, the guy whose name everyone in town knows.

Cool. I can wait.

Ten minutes later, Mr. Interviewer comes down from God's office, apologizes and we start the interview.

Which ... consists of him telling me all about the job and asking if it sounds good to me.

I grin like an escaped lunatic and nod my head in the affirmative while puddles of drool form on the front of my shirt.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes," I grunt.

The guy looks concerned and picks up his phone receiver while never taking his eyes off me.

"Yeah," the guy says in the phone. "He's here. Yes. Yes. Okay. We'll be right up."

He hangs up the phone and says "God wants to meet you."

Shit.

Anybody but God.

As I said, God is a local legend. If you've lived in this area for more than a month, you've heard of God. You've seen him on the news, or in the paper or at the end of a parade.

So we go to God's office, past the metal detectors and security.

We enter the office and honest-to-God ... there's clouds and golden gates in there.

God instructs us to sit down.

We both do.

He grabs my resume and starts leafing through it.

"You're pretty overqualified for this position," he grunts.

I'm well aware of this.

And there's no easy way to say "Yes, I know. But getting fired from my last full-time job was a huge blow to my self-esteem and now I just want a job where I don't have to think or make decisions or get involved in office politics. I just want to type type type and have everyone leave me the fuck alone."

So I said "This is a job I would exceed at."

I meant to say "excel at".

But I said "exceed at."

Which ... really made no sense.

It's like saying "I want this job because ham and cheese sandwich. With pickles. Pickles, God ... pickles."

It made no fucking sense.

He continues to look at my resume and says "What could you say that would convince me you'd stay at this job?"

Ah.

I guess you're asking that because I've had three jobs in the last three years, huh?

Yeah.

I guess in the eyes of God, that looks a little flaky, huh?

Well, lemme tell ya God ... I can guarantee you I'd stay at this job because my income right now is sporadic at best, I need the benefits, I have a little boy who needs Santa to bring him some toys and dogs ring bells to make the Thanksgiving dinner fly spring rolls doo dah doo dah doo.

I think I mumbled something about how it was a mistake to leave the newspaper back in 2001, but I needed the job with more money and better benefits.

Then that job went bankrupt a year and a half after I came on board.

Then I scrambled to get another job, landing at a job where I had no idea what I was doing and there was no one there to tell me how to do it. I fudged my way through that for almost a year before the jig was up and I was told to clean out my desk and hit the road.

That led to me experiencing a miniature nervous breakdown which resulted in me shaving my head, growing a beard and taking on an Amish look for no apparent reason. And lemme tell ya God ... I make for an ugly Amish guy.

So here I am. I KNOW I'm overqualified for the job. I KNOW I've had bad luck with jobs in the last three years.

But just gimme a chance.

Gimme a chance God.

Gimme a dinosaur bone skeleton Charlton Heston rump rump rumpa dump dump.

God stared at me and thanked me for stopping by.

The first interviewer and I left the room with me sweating buckets. My suit was soaked.

We got in the elevator and the interviewer went through the whole spiel about how they're interviewing five people for the job, I was first and that he'd let me know something on Friday.

I doubt seriously that I hear anything.

And if I do, it's just going to be God on the other end of the phone line, hootin' and snortin' and then hanging up on me.