Honorable Nominees,
Again, this year, I'm proud to announce that the race for the coveted CERTIFICATE OF UPGRADE award was a close one. Not as close as last years race but, nevertheless, a close, fierce, neck-and-neck, nose-to-nose competition reflective (in every way) of the competitors' high spirits, staunch dedication and unwavering conviction of competing for an award as if it was actually worth winning.
Before announcing this years winner of the CERTIFICATE OF UPGRADE award, I'd like to take a brief moment to introduce all the nominees and their meritorious achievements, dominant personality traits, speculative philosophies, hypocritical beliefs, pompous attitudes and flawed or misguided theories that have substantially helped make them eligible recipients for the highly prestigious and much sought after CERTIFICATE QF UPGRADE.
Corrections Officer ("CO") Wilson*, a.k.a. "Spot;" is a young, relatively confused individual whose inexperience and lack of self-confidence is overshadowed only by his rare psychological disorder commonly referred to by three-hundred-dollar-an-hour [Freudian] psychologists as Cognitive Dissonance: The ability to hold diametrically opposed convictions and/or opinions about the same subject. During prolonged periods of confusion, the condition may inspire the patient to, for no apparent reason, suddenly leap into the air and high-five himself!
ELEMENTARY CONCLUSION: He's certainly not the guy you'd want to head up your local Mental Health Task Force.
CO Risban, a.k.a. "The Hammer;" though never one to fall prey (too many times) to the age-old adage, "the trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool," is obviously a very troubled individual. He struggles daily to restrain the dark, foreboding demons of despair that slither and murmur nightly within the shadowy corners of a weary mind obsessed with an desire to grasp the concept and practical applications of UFO's alien abduction, cross-dimensional beings, spontaneous human combustion and the Bermuda Triangle.
Additionally, current displays of over enthusiastic job-dedication, prolonged bouts of authoritative-related aggression, gross disoriented thought processing and difficulty distinguishing a good haircut from a bad one, strongly indicates, to this unbiased observer, that the Hammer's "issues" stem from a tragic adolescent event in his past, such as having an invitation to the school dance rudely and mockingly rejected by a popular cheerleader, or witnessing a beloved, cherished puppy crushed flat by an 18 wheeler.
Surely, such traumatic events would, indeed, impair the Hammer's ability to make (snap and/or knee-jerk) decisions that are anchored in reality rather than (as so often is the case) decisions that fall somewhere on the CO's "Chart Of Bad Calls" between nearly rational and, "Hey, Mister, want me to toss that sack of kitten in the creek for ya?"
A POINT TO PONDER: Just how enthusiastic or authoritative do you think the Hammer would be sharing a cell with a six-foot, five-inch, two hundred and eighty pound, tattooed Mongolian homicidal maniac with no gender preference?
CO Friedenberger, a.k.a. "Kid Twist," is truly a gentleman whose professional experience and uncommon skills clearly exemplify and define the very essence of Alfred E. Newmen's insightful question, "Who, me?" Though substantially hindered by the unusual (and annoying) ability to make decisions based on instinct rather than reason, and clinically diagnosed with what permanently disbarred psychiatrists and wet-towel cabana boys often refer to as "Selective Perception:" the funny way the mind has of not seeing what it don't want to see.
Kid Twist's sole redeeming quality arrives (periodically) in the form of three latent, yet distinctive, personalities of semi-varying degrees of near-competence, exaggerated eye-brow waggling, integrity, infantile rubber-faced-yammering and excessive butt scratching.
I take great pleasure in introducing all honored nominees to Kid Twist's alter ego's: Bruce, Wayne and Carl.
ATTENTION! FAIR WARNING ADVISORY!: When Bruce emerges, slam it in gitty-up mode and high-tail it outta there ... lickety-split. Double-quick! Bruce DON'T play games!
CO Huffman, a.k.a. "The Door Nazi" is smoldered with more frustration than a monastery full of celibates. He possesses the disposition of an ill-tempered house cat and appears to suffer from a mutant strain of the dreaded Machobeme gene, a rare affliction which leads one to believe that an open or ajar door is a direct insult to one's self-appointed powers of authority and that they (open or ajar doors) are cryptic intergalactical "doorways" used by evil, ugly-as-mud, dwarf-like aliens from the planet Quadmire to rendezvous with the Mother Ship.
Such irrational thought processing, alone, would not normally be enough to qualify one as an honored nominee for the highly coveted CERTIFICATE OF UPGRADE award. Bolstered, however, by the psychotic illusion that the Pennsylvania prison system will (with help from the Quadmanians) someday be overthrown by a covert gang of militant librarians, that he'll be duly appointed Chancellor In Commander Of Earth Sector II, and reign supreme over a selective group of troubled individuals who adamantly proclaim to have "found Jesus" at a Tupperware party, clenches securely the Door Nazi nomination.
A BRIEF, PASSING THOUGHT: Do not fold, staple or mutilate.
Though all of this years nominees are worthy recipients of the CERTIFICATE OF UPGRADE award, there remain perplexing questions that cast suspicious shadows of uncertainty upon them. Such as: Who, exactly, are these people? Why are they there? And, finally, the most unanswerable question, what, exactly, is it that they do?
A POIGNANT OBSERVATION which emphatically proves, that answers to some questions should never be sought!
Prior to announcing this year's winner, I'd like to give a very special congratulatory SHOUT-OUT to last years honored recipient, the ever-deserving and always personable Sergeant Curtis "Baynonet" Wright! "Hey, you! Congratulations!"
Now, gentlemen, the moment you've all been anxiously awaiting! the coup de grace, so-to-speak. With all ballots cast and accounted for, it would give me immense pleasure to inform all nominees that it was (as I perviously stated) a close, fierce, neck-and-neck, nose-to-nose competition, but I lied! Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, not even close!
One of you emerged (hands down!) victorious above all others. Remember, nominees, no bickering! There are no losers. Each and everyone of you is a winner in his own right.
That said, and without further ado, it gives me tremendous satisfaction (and leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside) to announce that the highly coveted, widely renowned and curiously envied 2010 CERTIFICATE Of UPGRADE award goes to CO Steve "Kid Twist" Friedenberger!
FOOTNOTE: We've written about Spot before. See "The Joy of Stripping Old Men"