I’m trying here. I’m really trying. I go to business school, I keep up with stocks, I spent my January food money on a new suit from Men’s Warehouse that I’m required to wear for all of my presentations in classes. Give me a break.

I want to be a businessman. A mogul. My name is Brian Laflin, and I am the intern who reads all of your mocking tweets at the official Taco Bell Twitter account.

I get it. I get that you’re trying to be funny. My duties during my summer internship here at Taco Bell headquarters include making PowerPoint presentations of our monthly social media share increases through Tumblr (Devon in the cubicle next to me got Pinterest – the bastard), cleaning out the break room fridge at the end of the week, and reading “@” replies to our official Twitter account. I have to read all of them to see how we’re doing. This means taking note of celebrities that tweet positive things to us, retweeting happy customers who instagram us, and reading your silly comments. I see them all.

Don’t get me wrong. Some of you are pretty clever. Your “having to go to the bathroom often” premises are strong. Some of your parody accounts of a fat person who loves our food a lot seem to be popular. Your jokes about “about to have a heart attack haha i don’t care nom nom nom” or whatever the fuck – I get it.

The thing is, I didn’t fly all the way out here to Irvine from Charlottesville, VA to be mocked. I came here to be a success. Taco Bell is a high-profit establishment. It’s a sensible place for me to be at this point in my business education. Please, let me just get back to charting the percentages of Tumblr posts promoting us using the “Cantina Bell” hashtag against Devon’s bullshit Pinterest Excel sheets. If I’m going to be a CFO of a casual dining franchise someday, you have to leave me be.

This request extends to any and all ironic retweets of any official Twitter posts by Taco Bell. Please. I have a job to do.

The 3000m Steeplechase To Memorize “The Big Lebowski” References

Synchronized Swimming Naked On A Dare

Gym(Class Heroes)nastics

Baggy White T-Shirt Required Beach Volleyball

Fencing Because It’s Funny and Unique!

Archery

1. Get plenty of rest and stay focused!
2. Keep snacks handy, like a granola bar or ziploc bag of peanuts!
3. Carefully investigate all of the Facebook photo albums of the girl who is in one recent photo with the muscular boy you said 4 sentences to in high school!
4. Take breaks!
5. Watch every video on the Disney Weddings YouTube channel!
6. Acronyms always help with studying!
7. Watch every video on the Disney Weddings YouTube channel again, but this time skip all of your exams and stay in bed with Cake Batter ice cream while watching them!
8. Keep your phone off.

– Become deeply invested in the familial relationships of the cast members. Ana said in her bio that she “sends HUGE hugs and kisses to Mom, Dad, & Erin! <3”, but there’s nothing to be found in Ryan’s bio except a list of his other musical theatre roles. What’s going on at home for him? Should you invite him to Thanksgiving with your family this year?

 – You brought your origami handbook, right? Good. Fold it into a helicopter. No, not a paper airplane. You’re at “Miss Saigon” for Chrissakes.

– Bring all of the old programs from shows you’ve seen and see how they stack up against this one. Don’t be afraid to scoff.

– Put the program away and stare at your phone.

Girls, I’m so glad you all showed up to my sleepover. You may have been to other sleepovers throughout your elementary school careers, and they may have been uproarious and “crazy”, but I’m hoping to aim for something a little different here. This will be a temperate GabFest.

Don’t get me wrong. We will have plenty of fun. First on the agenda is not a pillow fight, but instead a pillow book exchange. We’ll each discuss our book selections (you all brought your books like I told you to, right? No, Jackie? Fine. Use one from my shelf. Just make sure it’s one that you have some contextual information about. Like, don’t pick “Of Mice and Men” if you have no knowledge about the socioeconomic implications of The Great Depression on American agriculture, okay?) and then have a fun little drawing to see who gets to take whose book home! We can sit on pillows during this process!

Oh, and we will certainly gab. I know Lexi had her first tongue kiss this week, but that’s not really the kind of content I’m going for here. I heard that Mrs. Raymond won the neighborhood Christmas light show for the first time! She took a chance with the choice to synchronize the lights flashing with a mash-up of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “Deck the Halls”, having only used one song or the other in past years. Let’s use that as a solid jumping off point.

Oh, um, Sarah? Could you keep your retainer in, please? Thanks.

I’m showing both “Passport to Paris” and “Winning London” in the upstairs office starting at 9pm, but it’s my Dad’s special room, so just don’t bring your sleeping bags up there. Fabric carries a lot of dust.

So, let’s get this thing started! Who wants to be the assigned verb-giver for Mad Libs? There can only be one!

Dear Math,

Today I am done with you. I completed my final mathematics exam for my college Applied Mathematics for Social and Management Sciences class not three hours ago. We’re through. Your things are on the front stoop.

I’ve put up with a lot from you. I’ll admit, it’s partly my fault because I was fooled by how blissful the honeymoon period was. Being asked to tutor other math students in seventh grade when we began algebra, hugged and high-fived by teachers who loved how neat my handwriting was (I can still write fractions very clearly in only one line of notebook paper, in case you forgot), being asked to take AP Calculus AB my junior year of high school, assuming I would then take BC senior year and earn enough credits to never have to take a math class again in college…

It was all a facade. Empty promises. An empty trunk of withered promises. An empty, decrepit, black AND brown widow spider-infested trunk with saggy, ghost-like, grey and black promises draped on the outside of it. You never told me that calculus was going to be hard.

You knew when we met that I wanted to be in show business. You knew I would have rehearsal every day after school my junior year because I had climbed my way up the high school theatre department ladder to STAGE MANAGER. So why did you introduce integrals into the picture?

No, no, leave me alone. I know you made things better for a few months with Statistics. You always make that argument. We had a lot of fun with box-and-whisker plots. It felt like paradise. Sure, you maybe saw a crazier, more brazen side of me with our nights of passionate confidence intervals in Puerta Vallarta. But I think we were deluding ourselves. We need to face reality.

You’re a mean, little, merciless man. You’re short and acne-ridden. English is a tall, dark-haired, elegantly quaffed wealthy boy wearing a cardigan who opens doors for me. History is the same except he has a beard. You and Science can go watch your Sunday football games at your gross apartment from now on. Not in my house anymore. And don’t even THINK about bringing that imbecile Physics around ever again. He tried to feel me up under the table last Thanksgiving.

Those last two years of high school were the most trying of our time together. The ease of a giant college lecture format made me temporarily forget your selfishness. But now that I’ve finished this last exam – which had a very unfair question about domains on it, by the way (you think I don’t notice these little things, BUT I DO! Like when you don’t clean up your orange peels from the counter) – I’m a stronger person.

I know myself now. If I have to thank you for anything, it’s that I learned a lot about how much I’d rather analyze the veiled greedy intentions behind the trading of Suez Canal than try to solve you.

You’re gonna have to go solve yourself from now on. Or get that slut in our building, Biomedical Engineering, to solve you. I heard that she solves everybody. Use protection.

Sincerely,

Liz

Bridge To Success

Luck Lasts Forever Balance Beam

Wooden Castle Maze To Your Secretary’s Vagina

Concrete Jungle Gym

Teeter-Totter In My Direction Because I’m Better Than You

Altruism-Free Handlebars

Slide Away From Your Family

I’ve gathered everyone in the lobby this morning to address some ongoing issues that are difficult to bring up during the day-to-day hustle and bustle. Being hired at Stantec Incorporated means that you are achievers. A lot of civil engineers apply for this firm. You are the special ones.

Unfortunately, and I don’t know how this completely bypassed me during the administrative process – I’ll speak with my HR intern Cindy after the meeting – you all are fresh graduates of the exact same system. Now, the Disney Imagineers program was a great experience I’m sure. And I’m sure you learned a lot about the velocity of water rafts and about how to make a robot dinosaur open its mouth so that it doesn’t actually hurt anyone but for a second you think he’s going to eat you and it’s really exciting, but we build bridges. Literally. Stantec Inc. is a civil engineering firm that builds bridges for eighteen clients in and around the Sumter County region. That’s it.

Geoffrey, you’re our star. You’ve made a lot of high-profile deals with city departments who desperately need bridges. However, your delivery is a little bit different. Wakulla County now has a secret grotto that transforms color and emits sparkly fog every hour on the hour. No bridge.

Lori. The Bushnell causeway – again, let me note, a BRIDGE – was supposed to be just that. Nothing more. The city comptroller didn’t say, “Hey, Lori, you know what’d be great? A bellowing Medusa sound byte when people drive over the causeway smiting all male sailors who pass.” Or, “Lori! When you’re done with that causeway, could you add a special lane for a haunted doom buggy?” He said, “Can Stantec build Bushnell a causeway?” He did NOT ask for a Chamber of Ghouls.

Imagineering was a fun time for you all. I can tell. But all I’m asking for is basic engineering skills. Stop trying so hard. Drop the games. Drop the confetti. Literally. Cindy, put the silver confetti back in the Orbit FutureWorld Room. God, that used to be my coffee break room. While you’re in there, please take down the galaxy dream charts.

I’m really asking you guys to just jump back into the box. I’m sure your time out if it was pleasant, but the humble town of Starke needs a bridge. What they do not need is a Backwoods Barn Hall Jamboree light and synchronized tambourine show.

Again, Cindy, I don’t know how we missed this being listed on every single one of their resumes.

You all can get back to work now. And please, don’t chant about “believing” as you walk down the hallway to your offices. Just close your doors and turn on your iPods.

SALLY: But really, I thought there was only a 1:5 probability that you would draw a green chip out of the sack. I swear it!

TOM: Well, doesn’t matter now. Into the fire pit I go.

–

JEN:  The one thing you promised me in this relationship was that 3/8 of this pizza was mine. We worked it out in the chart and everything!

RICK: That was true…until I met Nancy. I have a new pie chart now.

–

TRACY: The car stopped moving for more reasons than simply its slope of zero here on the graph.

JOHN: Honey, I accepted that the car stopped moving a long time ago.

Sir, with all do respect, you really should rethink your decision to not give me this job. I’d be a great administrative assistant for your real estate company. I’m professional on the phone, I can work with Excel, and I’m on Smash Mouth’s street team.

It’s a really demanding position. I’m not just on the street team. I’m an active member and have been for almost twelve years now. I’m in charge of organizing the general Broward County area Mouth Heads. You’re probably wondering why we don’t call ourselves All Stars. Mouth Heads was just one of my many initiatives with the nationwide street team. All Stars is SO obvious. We’re smarter than that.

This position requires me to make posters, organize group lunches every other Thursday at P.F. Chang’s, and run the notoriously rowdy Broward County section of the message boards. People skills are vital to administrative assistance, and I believe that my experience with online forum management has given me just that and so much more. Whether it is approving who can and cannot be included in the secret, password-only section of the board called “The REAL Astro Lounge” or deleting hundreds of pages of porn, I have grown and learned a lot from this demanding side of my job.

Your office is really bare. Do you want a 2000 tour poster? I have a stack in my trunk.

No, I don’t get paid. Street teaming is more than just a “volunteer activity” or “an embarrassment”, as all 2 of my exes call it. It’s a life choice. You’re either in or you’re out. And I, sir, am most definitely in. Just ask Steve Harwell. He signed one of my sneakers once. Look!

Oh. If you do give me the job, first request is that I can wear sneakers in the office. Please?