Despite being the person who suggested I should have my own column, last month Bryan Hanks was named editor of the Kinston Free Press.
To the general public, Bryan Hanks is an affable, civic-minded do-gooder who drives a military surplus Jeep that’s riddled with bullet holes from the Battle of Gettysburg. The behind-the-scenes Bryan Hanks is a maniacal Svengali who terrorizes his employees with threats of termination and mandatory Neil Sedaka karaoke lunches.
One of the first things Hanks did after taking over the editor spot was send out a memo to the rank and file. Here is an excerpt from that memo:
Dear Sycophants,
The purpose of this memo is to let you all know how I intend to run things around here. Anyone not willing to kneel before Hanks and obey my every command is welcome to pick up their consolation bag of fun size M&Ms from the bucket in the lobby on your way out the door.
For starters, no one is to make eye contact with me at any time. Eye contact gives the false impression that a conversation is about to take place, and I can assure you that’s not going to happen. If you wish to compliment one of my columns, my cologne or my choice of shirt, you can obtain an Eye Contact Permission Application from our human resources director. If your application for eye contact is approved, you may look me in the eye and compliment me during my weekly 4:56 to 4:58 p.m. office hours on Friday.
Secondly — and I can’t stress this enough — once a massage schedule is finalized, IT’S FINAL! If it’s your turn to administer my daily, two-hour deep tissue and corn massage, it’s locked in. Schedules will not be altered for graduations, pre-planned vacations or unplanned funerals. Employees with standing restraining orders against me are exempt.
Corporate is cracking down on non-work related internet usage, and as some of you know I start my day with a few hours of Dungeons and Dragons online role playing. I’m currently immersed in a campaign to retrieve the remnants of Harry Truman’s speedo from the caves of Lonely Mountain. If anyone gets wind of an IT person coming in to check our computers, you have my permission to delete everything off of my office computer. The username is “Anderson”; password is “Cooper.”
Also, on occasion I may ask some of you to perform certain tasks for me such as co-signing on a loan, searching dumpsters for furniture/foodstuffs, checking me for ticks or offering candy to any male employees who show signs of usurping my status as the handsomest man in the office. If Frank in advertising shows signs of slimming down, I better see a steady stream of biscuits, brownies and biscotti flowing from your desks to his thighs.
By all accounts, Hanks led a solitary life in high school. A former girlfriend says the brash, upwardly mobile Bryan Hanks of today is still trying to outrun his less than stellar past.
“Due to his acne, halitosis and rickets, for most of his high school years, Bryan Hanks was lonelier than the guy manning the fruit section at a Golden Corral breakfast buffet,” said former girlfriend Peggy Lipton. “We thought he might grow up to become a super-hero or something; apparently he’s taken the Joker/Lex Luthor route instead.”
Former Free Press writers David Anderson and Chris Lavender corroborate Lipton’s depiction.
“I didn’t like having to clean his apartment on my day off, but it prepared me for my current part-time job as zoo janitor,” Anderson said.
“Sometimes I still wake up screaming thinking it’s my turn to loofah his elbows,” Lavender said. “He simply refused to moisturize.”
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase music, books and private email addresses at jondawson.com.