Some of my best friends are power-hungry world-conquerors

One of the most interesting things about doing CoIM is noticing just how much my predictions of public reaction differ from reality. I should be used to it, I suppose; I have a long history of rehearsing serious heart-to-hearts with friends and family beforehand, composing the entire conversation in my head, only to have the other person go off-book almost immediately. So, my misjudging of people’s reactions, not a real shocker. But it is interesting.

For example, when I first started, I expected for The Book Monkeys to be the most vocal of the three groups, since they were the most vocal about the Infinite Monkeys Press webpage, but instead it has turned out to be the Parkerites, from whom getting comments on IMP was like pulling teeth. I’ve also already talked about how the preference for my ramblings over my reviews blind-sided me. And now, today, even though I was unsure how people would react to the first part of my cast list, there was one reaction in particular that took me totally by surprise: the idea that I had portrayed Flunky as the quote-unquote bad guy.

Let me assure you, one and all, that it was honestly never my intention to paint Flunky as the bad guy. A despotic, power-hungry obsessive with his sights set on world domination as long as it doesn’t require him to hit the “reply” button on his email? Sure. But a bad guy? Never.

Honestly, other than my crack about the email (which, by the way, is such a long standing joke that I put it down without even thinking) I think the cast description paints a fairly positive portrait. Why, I even went so far as to point out that after putting up with nearly 12 years of my incessant needling, Flunky has not yet snapped my miserable neck as is well within his power and, some might say, his rights to do ("Not a jury in the world would convict you!" I imagine a voice (which sounds vaguely like G'ovich) yelling) ; my friends, if that’s not the sign of a good guy, well, I just don’t know what is. In fact, after observing myself in action for 30 years now I would say that, in my book, putting up with my ceaseless jabs without resorting to his military explosives training makes the man practically a saint.

That’s right, you heard me: a saint.

A despotic, power-hungry saint.

I hope that clears everything up. I mean, it’s not like I insinuated in my cast list that being married to Saint Flunky would cause his spouse to have a nervous breakdown. Now something like that, my friends, would have pointed to a bad guy . . .