STARTING FROM BEHIND

I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with the phrase the hurrier you go the behind you get. It might not sound logical to put it that way, but it is how it needs to be said.

There are numerous situations when I get involved from the beginning with a problem. So figuring out solutions is something I feel I have a certain control over.

And since I have learned that I am a dismal failure at being a prophet and thus wrong more often than right, for me control is about finding some scapegoat to take the fall for my blunder. Hey, I will risk being involved, but I'm not about to face any consequences. Okay, that is the coward's way out. So sue me! Er, you could try at least.

Now with something where I get involved after the fact I truly am in my glory. I can blame any mess on the people who came before me. Isn't that such a blessing?

It is too me of course. And another benefit to getting involved with some project that is already messed up is that I don't have to worry about deadlines. I got the perfect excuse, the other clown messed things up and I'm the handyman so get off my back about doing anything by any deadline.

Believe it or not, and I'm sure you will, I even have a special plan for those occasions when I start a project and it gets totally screwed up. When somebody else comes in to take over I have my set of excuses to blow smoke in the face of the person till I can come up with a way to be sure nobody thinks it was really my fault.

My favorite excuse is that I was swamped do to an over demanding schedule. Oh yeah that works great. Things didn't work out because I was slaving away at the issue both day and night till I became exhausted.

Those comments will all be baloney naturally. I have no intentions of working at anything that hard regardless of the potential for glory. I just have way too many constructive ways to get some attention without squandering my energy actually doing something good.

In the meantime I do have to struggle to be sure I come up with the appropriate speech to inspire others to do what I am too lazy to do. It is a wonderful world when you can find enough suckers to buy our pile of bull.

At least in Mediocrity that hasn't proved to be too big of a problem. I am always able to scrounge up a few suckers. It is just a matter of how convincingly I can lie about it and who is brain damaged enough to be suckered by my comments.

In the end, I just always make sure I pass the plate. That is the one with the stale cookies that will no doubt give people heartburn. And when they are done, I take up a collection for my fee of course. So when they are sick, I can buy them a nice sympathy card while on my way to the bank.