Welcome to my nightmare
(Editorial)
An attempt to woo prospective volunteers to visit The Peak’s semesterly open house. I don’t recommend that you read this one unless you enjoy in-jokes specifially relevant to people who worked at The Peak in the summer of 1999. You have been warned!
Ahem. In my official capacity as The Peak’s resident public relations officer, volunteer co-ordinator, astrologer and humour desk editor, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to the Peak open house this Thursday, May 20 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
I know exactly what will happen during your visit. I have it planned out in my mind to the last detail.
Moments after walking in our front door, you will be accosted by a devilishly handsome young fellow in a tux. That’s me. Hi. The next thing you know, you’ll be off on a whirlwind tour of The Peak. Here’s a preview of the excitement we have in store...
Our first stop would be at the Russian Story Booth of our copy editor, Erin Fitzpatrick. She specializes in telling stories about her trip to Russia a couple of years back. No matter what subject you bring up, she’ll be able to relate it somehow to her trip to Russia. She guarantees it.
After that we’ll stop by the office of Don, our business manager. He will probably have some forms for you to fill out. Don’t fill them out. Nobody else does.
Then we can drop by our production editor’s office, or Mason’s Sports Shack as we have come to affectionately know it. Mason will ask you three sports trivia questions of increasing difficulty. If you get all three of them right, Mason will permit you to touch his stomach. This is a great honour in his culture. It means that he respects you.
Then we would descend to the shimmering subterranean caverns beneath The Peak. We will dive into the crystal waters and swim until total refreshment has been attained. Simon the news editor will be there watching over us. He is a qualified lifeguard, but if we get into trouble he won’t save us. He does enough of that at his real job.
After that, we’ll take a brief swing past the desk of Erin Anderson, our graphics editor. She is the only Peakie involved in a stable and fulfilling relationship at the moment, so she is very happy and well-adjusted, and is therefore not very interesting. We’ll move on.
Moments later, we will enter the Peak records room, home of the infamous Mat X, our records keeper. In this room we have Peak issues stretching back through time to 1965, when the university opened. We will flip through them while listening to selections from Mat’s collection of vegetarian thrash punk rock. If you are very lucky, Mat will even show you his tatooed parts.
We will then stop by the desk of Pete Conlin, our new production resource person. He has only been working here for a few weeks, so his transformation from human to Peakie is still not complete. Witness the horror of his gnarled, misshapen form, and know that if you decide to become a Peakie, this is your future.
And there’s more! I don’t want to ruin all the surprises that await you at the Peak open house, but I will hint that you cannot leave before a stint in the Bess Lovejoy Postmodern Crypt of Horror and Ryan Roddy’s Erotic House of Feet.
So come on down to the Peak open house! It’s this Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can have a look at our offices, meet the editors, and perhaps come to the startling realization that The Peak is the place for you. Who knows? Someday, it could be you wasting everyone’s time by writing drivel in this space.
See you there! Kiss kiss! •
Originally published in The Peak, May 17 1999.
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