Dear Amritsar,
I work in the Poughkeepsie, Alberta offices of Transgalactic Puffballs Inc, an import/export company that deals mostly in artifacts from Tau Ceti. You know: self-basting Farrumph roast holders, hovering carpets (“For people who are scared of heights!”), Death Masks of Ramen the Inedible, that sort of thing. I’ve worked in the Fulfillment Department (a misnomer if I ever used one on letterhead!) for 12 years; I thought I would be stuck there until I clawed my eyes out with a stuffed eagle I keep on my desk or retired, whichever came last.
Then, Catherine Hakim made it okay for women to use their sexuality to get ahead in the workplace. Yay! Oh, I may have had to strangle my inner Gloria Steinem in order to follow Hakim’s advice, but, honestly, she left cigarette butts all over my spleen, and I could swear that was a liquor stain on my lower intestine, so it was about time for her to go! Sure, I would be setting the cause of women back 60 years, but I could live with that – 50s fashions are so flattering to a woman’s figure!
Look at it this way: if a man can dress to please his boss, if he always has a smile for his boss and he flirts shamelessly with his boss…well, he would have to be gay because there are still few women in positions of authority. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In any case, that relatively rare scenario is a good enough example for me to pattern my behaviour after!
So, I started wearing my most sensual clothes (you know – the ones I paid the most for even though they contain the least amount of fabric) and saving up money for the day when I could get my teeth whitened so I could smile more without being self-conscious about tooth rotTM. There was only one problem.
My boss is a Seltzerpuss.
For those not familiar with Tau Cetians (Tau Cetaceans?) – and, since they like to keep a low profile (and, after the incident with the Armenian Ambassador and the Lobster Thermidor, who can blame them?), that’s probably most of your readers – they are essentially six foot tall worms. With limbs. And, something approaching a face. Their faces are made up of two slits at a 90 degree angle above which sit two round holes – Scott McCloud would recognize them as faces, if nobody else.
My feminine wiles were completely wasted on Krrang-Facken, my boss. When I tried winking at him, for instance, he asked me, “Is your optical input device malfunctioning?” When I started coming to work in low cut blouses, he suggested I “cover up before you get a chest cold.” One day, I patted an area opposite Krrang-Facken’s face, about halfway down that, on a human body, would have been a butt; he avoided me in the office for the next three weeks.
Realizing that this approach wasn’t working, I decided to meet Krrang-Facken on his own turf. I started wearing Dior’s Oligochaeta, a perfume that smells like moist soil with just a hint of feces. No reaction. I started wearing makeup that made my skin look a shade of pale pink that came close to that of a Seltzerpuss. Nothing. I may as well have stuck a pair of firecrackers up my nose and sung The Wizard of Oz Dark Side of the Moon for all the good my efforts did me!
Do you have any idea about what I should try next? Because, frankly, I’m thinking of giving up the import-export business and becoming a gunman’s moll!
Name Withheld By Request Because Mary Traverse Didn’t Want To Be Held Up To Ridicule
Hey, Babe,
Funny thing about the Seltzerpuss: they reproduce asexually. When one is ready to have children, it is cut in half, and both halves grow to become fully formed adults. So, not only have you sold out your sisters, who will have to work five times as hard to work twice as hard to get half the recognition of a man, but you did so in a way that will get you absolutely nowhere.
It’s women like you that make me embarrassed for my gender.
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service’s sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: fad diets come and go, but Type 2 Diabetes is forever.