Secret Agent Curmudgeon

Apologies to my loyal readers (reader?) for the very, very late post today. Since I started this cheap alternative to five-times-a-week psychotherapy last year I have posted every weekday, except holidays, and I didn't want the streak to end. Today in "What Would Jesus Do?" country I was trapped on the 11th hole under a lightning and rain storm and was sent south to Miami on the Florida turnpike after asking the probably mentally deficient tollbooth guy "is this the turnpike going north?" "Yes," he said and on I went headed to South Beach.

Twenty years ago during my senior year of college I took the CIA recruiting exams. I made it through the first couple of rounds, including a 1,000 question exam with true-false questions like, "I like to watch flames," and "I can stop my stream of urination at will." I kid you not. I didn't make it into the Company (or did I? Hmmmm) but a bunch of people did and some of them are in charge there now. At least until hookergate and bribegate hit the front pages. You gotta love a CIA guy named "Nine Fingers" and Dusty and Porter aren't bad names either. Problem is they are bad people. The stories are just coming out but even without the bribes and hookers and resignations the CIA would be a miserable place to work now after two years of Porter Goss, a former Republican Congressman, bringing over his crew of political hacks to run things and purge the Democrats at Langley. And after the morale and experience at CIA is demolished they want to bring in a Air Force General in the pocket of Rumsfeld and Cheney. Just what we need, the CIA becoming a branch of the military or some division of the Republican party like Fox News. I feel safer already.

I guess on my CIA essay 20 years ago I should have said, "I like hookers. I like bribes. And my nickname is Curmudgeon." Then maybe I would have trained at The Farm and ended up being outed and getting a $2.5 million book deal. Or maybe it did happen.