The HubPages Chairman
Our Beloved Leader
(North Korea stole the name "Beloved Leader" from us)
We, the six Elites of HubPages, have recently been summoned into The Presence! The big cheese of HubPages, the Chairman himself. His secretary took us in and laid us on the carpet of his huge luxurious office which was so big, we had trouble recognising the original, million dollar Louis XIV desk at the end of the room, so far away from the door it was.
We followed the example of his secretary and we all approached him on all fours, touching our foreheads to the rug every five paces, as is the custom here. I wanted to do the civil thing and try to relax the tension by opening the conversation with some casual remark on the state of the crops this year and how pork bellies went up again, but I met his forbidding eye which had a similar expression I had seen once on a half boiled fish and I reconsidered the rash act. This man and his vast volatile brain were reading a newspaper and forty five minutes later he put it down and flicked his cigar ash on us in acknowledgement.
“I asked you here, Whatever-Your-Names-Are…” the secretary touched her forehead on the rug again before speaking “They are the Elites, Sir”, she said.
“The what? Ahhhh…. HaaaaaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaaa…. Hm… er… I mean… Whatever. I asked you here, Whatever-Your-Names-Are, because I hear that you may be good at making money.”
We grovelled in acknowledgement.
“My yes men and I, I mean the Board of Directors and I, have decided to appoint you lot as joint treasurers. This year our profits have dropped to just one million a day net, so obviously business is not going well and another year of this I might have to give up piracy and get an honest job.”
We grovelled in thanks.
“Mrs Chairman and the kids need a round the world cruise, first class of course, and I am certainly not paying for it out of my own pocket. We have over 60,000 members on HubPages and I am sure that they do not want the wife of their Chairman to do without and they are quite capable of doing the right thing by the Little Woman. Your job as joint treasurers is to find new ways to squeeze some more money out of the inmates here, in order to keep Mrs Chairman in the style to which she has become accustomed.”
We crawled backwards out of The Presence and the secretary showed us to our new office. It is only six by six feet, but she assured us that in another five years we shall get one with a window.
Now, we are not ones to gossip and we hate to speak ill of any man behind his back, especially our Chairman, but I must confide in you that rumour has it that he is Swiss. It is possible that this is only just a vile rumor scurrilously put about by his enemies, so we are reluctant to spread the report.
Perhaps you know that in Switzerland, where he comes from, they call their paper money “Moths”? The reason for this is that once they trouser a five dollar note, it does not see the light of day again until the trousers are sent to the cleaners, which is only once every five years in order to save money on dry cleaning. By then, of course, the fin comes out covered in moths, hence the name.
Compared to the Swiss, Scotsmen are considered to be insane spendthrifts and Scotsmen have been known to take the Swiss’ correspondence course on Scrooge-ology and that’s no humbug. Also, at least once in their lifetime Scotsmen must go on pilgrimage to Switzerland to pay homage to The Masters, as they call the Swiss and they come away with a tear of hope trickling down their cheeks all the way to their red beards, hoping that they may someday reach the haloed heights of the Swiss.
Now, six months later, we all sit in our tiny office and, because we are not allowed to talk except during breaks, we slowly and meditatively place ourselves outside beers and beef sandwiches at lunch times as we discuss great strategies. A large part of these discussions concentrate around South America and the Amazonian jungle. Ever since the Chairman selected us to be treasurers of this august body, ours have become souls that are deeply seared by Fate's challenges. We take it for granted that our Beloved Leader MUST know that any appointment of a treasurer necessarily means that the appointer knows that he is taking a sporting chance and we are anxious to rise to the challenge. We are constantly tormented by this sudden desire to visit little known parts of the world where thoughts of extradition treaties with major Western countries have never actually become reality nor any such document has ever been signed. None of us have ever felt such an urge before and we all wonder why.
But there are clever people here at HubPages and I think that we might be suspected. Maddie and Simone sit up night after night with the Chairman, heads closely together, appearing to discuss the future of the organisation, but as soon as we step through the door, deathly silence ensues. We suddenly feel as if our family names are Capulet and that we have accidentally stumbled onto a Montague poker game and the temperature definitely seems to drop well below zero. It makes us wonder if they can read minds.
So we count the river of money coming in every day and we think of the Amazon. Unfortunately, none of our spouses like Amazonian mosquitoes and we have now reached an en passé. Whenever we mention South America to them, the love light becomes conspicuously absent from their eyes and they begin to stare at the infinite. As much as they love us, they draw the line at travelling up river in a canoe carved our of a whole tree trunk, powered by native muscle. Also, the thought of daily having to remove Amazonian alluvial deposits from their persons does not appear to inspire them.
I am the only male in the group of six Elites and the only thing that puts the females off is the thought of a lifetime of being forced to listen to De Greek’s jokes without respite and without the relief of an occasional visitor who might at least take the burden off their shoulders on occasion.
As you know, it is the curse of Eve to be forever doomed to pretend to enjoy listening to jokes from the male of the species. If men liked a joke that was told to them in infancy, it will stick to them like glue during the passage through childhood, puberty and adulthood, through their more mature years right to their death bed. Many a male on his death bed, immediately after some man of God has administered the last rites, has called his wife to his side and, reaching for her with a trembling arthritic hand, said to her in a wheezing, rasping voice
“Have I told you the one about the Irishman, the Bishop and the barmaid?”
He then ignores her affirmative answer and proceeds to tell his story, taking time to bring the oxygen mask to his face every so often, in order to gather strength to continue.
And the little woman bravely listens for the 365th time that year to the same joke that has put her to sleep throughout her married life and breaths not a word of reproach. Such is the miracle of Woman’s Love. However, HubPages Elite Women might put up with Amazonian mosquitoes, deadly snakes, poisoned arrows and accessories, but the thought of living with De Greek for longer than twelve hours is rather off putting.
Anyway, just in case anyone reading this owns a fast airplane capable of reaching Brazil without refueling, please contact us and you shall not regret it.
Dimitris Mita
De Greek