Harry

Have you ever seen Ken's hair? Of course not, because he doesn't have any. At least not any blond, flowing locks like Barbie with color change action or sparkling tattoos. Ken dolls don't even come with a brush because their hair is plastered on top in a smooth, coifed, rubber helmet. He isn't even anatomically correct, with the area between his legs and waist covered with what we liked to tell my sister was "see-through plastic underwear." I wonder if she thought all men were like that, must have scarred her for life.

The boss isn't anatomically correct either. He couldn't be. He is such a prick that he doesn't need to have one. He also has the Ken hair, jet black and gooped up with that LA Looks styling gel. Someone should tell him that this is Minneapolis, far from California. No. Not someone. Me. I should tell him that I, Harry Boswick am not screwing around.

Click, send.

Damn, Harry thought as the boss glanced over toward his cubicle, almost got caught that time. He knew that Mart over in HR would get a kick out of that e-mail, so it was worth it.

Harry had hated his job for as long as he could remember, longer even. He imagined dinosaurs in business suits and ties discussing how Ken was an even worse slave driver than Mr. Slate was to Fred Flinstone. Just everything about the man bothered him, his gelled up hair, his broom handle shoved through a weed whacker mustache, his dusty attic scented cologne, his impossibly large teeth. He could make a list. Hey, nothing better to do, just more dull data entry. He got all the way up to 57 and shot it right over to Mart, chuckling to himself. Until he noticed the shadow on his computer screen.

And that was the day that the great Harry Boswick was fired. Within half an hour, he and his Dilbert mouse pad and his framed picture of his wife's head on Cindy Crawford's body were out on the sidewalk. Plus two crates of office supplies he found in the hallway. As the pads of yellow Ken Miller Inc. post-it notes drifted in a dance to the gutter, he swore that he would never have to put up with another boss. And to this day he hasn't.

But of course he didn't have the sudden inspiration to start his own business or anything like that, and he didn't have the persistence to be a panhandler. Instead he decided to become the collector of loose change. You know what I mean, the few quarters in the car, the penny you find under the box of Corn Flakes on the kitchen table. He figured with all of the absent minded people in the world, there must be enough loose change laying around for him to make a living.

He decided to tell his wife that he was taking a week's vacation in order to better cope with the corporate stress, and what do you know? She actually bought it. That's why it pays to marry someone low in intelligence. "You get paid double for vacation days right?" she asked in her Fran Drescher-esque whine while glancing up from the television which she had forgotten to turn on and fiddling with a run in her stocking.

"Well of course, dear," he nodded. "And since I have all this free time on my hands, I'm going to start by cleaning the house for you, beginning with that sofa." She didn't know whether to laugh or faint, so instead rewarded him with a sultry peck on the lips. He could get used to this, he thought.

"You go out and buy yourself a new dress," he told her, taking a twenty out of his wallet.

"Gee," she cried. "You are so thoughtful. Wait till Nadine hears!" She grabbed her pink vinyl purse and scrambled out the door, barely keeping her balance on her leopard print patent leather heels as she shuffled to the car.

Now was the time to get to work. Harry barely knew where to start. There were so many places: the sofa cushions, washing machine, closets, windowsills; each had to be carefully searched for change, making sure that not even a penny was lost in the cracks.