Heartfelt life-transition advice for former Washington bigwigs:

At Iowahawk Congressional Outplacement Services our primary goal is to orient, retrain, and mainstream former employees of Capitol Hill for productive careers outside Washington. While we can’t get you back your seniority, your perks, or your mahogany-paneled office in the Dirksen Building, we can give you the tools you’ll need after your ignominious rejection by those bastard ingrates you’ll soon be living among. Follow this step-by-step guide and you’ll be back on your feet in no time! Probably.

Step 1: Assess Your Skills and Competencies

The road to your new non-Washington career begins with an inventory of your personal strengths and competencies. Read the critical skill list below, and circle the ones that you possess.

* Telling other people what to do
* Demanding money
* Peddling influence
* Talking loudly over others
* Condescension / arrogance
* Threatening, browbeating, arguing
* Narcissism
* Evading responsibility
* Spin control

As a former Washington professional, you probably circled four or more of the above. Yes, there are some private sector industries where these skills are valued – such as journalism, bill collection, professional wrestling, higher education, and carnival barking. Unfortunately, these are all declining industries with low wages and/or fierce job competition. In order to maintain your standard of living, you will probably have to seek employment in other industries where you will find surprisingly little demand for your skills.

I think he’s overoptimistic on how fast they’ll be back on their feet. But at least they’ll be off our backs.

…Before you fly away.

[Update a while later]

Following the lead of CAIR, as head of the Council of American-Simbergic Relations (CASR), I have just issued myself the following memo:

Special recommendations for Simbergic men who, as part of their quaint and colorful cultural tradition, are required to wear pants in public:

* If you are selected for secondary screening after you go through the metal detector and it does not go off, and “sss” is not written on your boarding pass, ask the TSA officer if the reason you are being selected is because of your trousers, and specifically your skivvies.
* In this situation, you may be asked to submit to a pat-down or to go through a full body scanner. If you are selected for the scanner, you may ask to go through a pat-down instead.
* Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, the groinal region. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.
* You may ask to be taken to a private room for the pat-down procedure of said trouser snake, and have it performed by a smokin’ hot woman. You may also ask for extra time, and cigarettes afterwards, if you smoke.
* If there is no woman available, or if she is insufficiently pulchritudinous and compliant with your special pat-down needs, instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down yourself, particularly the pelvic area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.

The latter won’t be a major imposition on me, because I already pat down my junkawesome and monstrous instrument of female pleasurin’ several times a day (only in the interests of security, of course), though I usually don’t have anyone to perform the requisite chemical swipe afterwards, so that will be a government-subsidized bonus for me. I am a vaguely semitic appearing person, and I am always very suspicious of me, as are most people who meet me, with good reason. I never know what I may have in my pants.

[Update mid afternoon]