Spy Guy

job description

I have GOT to get me a silencer.  All the other spies have them.  I can't decide between the new noise-cancelling type or the old technology that is kind of like shooting through a pillow, which is what I do now when I need to shoot quietly.  The new kind are cool and the other spies will be so jealous but they are expensive.  Then again, I actually like the old silencers because they are, you know, not quite SILENT.  They go pffft.  With the new kind, you can't even tell if you've shot.  

The other spies like to make fun of me because they are into, like, international intrigue and I am only in Industrial Espionage.  You have probably seen my work and not even known it.  Remember Metrecal?  That was mine.  Also Johnson's Wax and Ipana toothpaste.  I had a few slip-ups, though.  Nobody's perfect.  There was the pizza-in-a-tube thing... ugh.  But as successful as I have been, the international intrigue spies still look down on us.  There has never been a blockbuster movie about industrial espionage.  

I got into the spy thing late because all through high school I was thinking English Lit or, perhaps, the Ministry.... and when I finally chose Spying as my career, all the good schools were taken.  I only got wait-listed at Brigham Young University, the nation's source of CIA recruits.  So I had to go to a school I am sworn to secrecy not to reveal, but I will say it is located in Harvard Square.  And the reason they don't want me to say is not that it would compromise security.  The reason I am sworn to secrecy is that they are actually ranked number 23 in the nation in spy schools.  It is truly an embarrassment for them, Ivy League and all.  

Oops.

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In spy school we did all the usual things.  Stay up late.  Wake up later.  Complain.  The only thing that made us different from any other student was that we were always sneaking around.  And we talked out of the sides of our mouths in secret code.  I got an A in code but to this day cannot speak it conversationally.  Oh.  And we never trusted anybody.

In spy school, I had a girlfriend who was also a spy, but she transferred to astronomy.  Pretty soon neither of us had much to say to each other.  It was as though we were living on separate planets, speaking different languages.  There was that telescope thing, though, and that is what kept us together for as long as it lasted.  But over time, it takes more than peering at distant things to sustain a relationship.  Besides, having once been a spy student, she knew what kind of guy I would become once I gained full spy status.  Shifty, silent, and lots (I mean LOTS) of girlfriends.

I graduated a respectable 12th in my class but my class rank and the diminished status of my school pretty much sealed my fate as an industrial spy instead of a spot in the more lucrative government-meddling field.  One of my classmates who graduated top of our class actually single-handedly formed the present government of Jamaica.  So he tells me.

My path has been more sober: Product Development.  I take these ideas which corporations spend a lot of money developing and sell them to rival corporations at a fraction of their development cost.  Sometimes I play both sides of the fence.  It was me who stole the double blade razor idea from Schick and sold it Gillette.  A few years later I stole the triple blade concept from Gillette and sold it to Schick.  It was inevitable: when the breakthrough of the 4-bladed razor (codename: Quattro) was merely a rumor, I broke into the research lab and photographed the prototype and sold it to Schick.  Or was it to Gillette?  Whatever.  I have heard of a secret project at Gillette called Pentar.  I wonder where it will end. Gillette has in development a 15-blade razor.

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Everybody thinks spies have cool cars, but that is just a myth.  Most of us take our fancy-car allowance, get an ordinary spy car and pocket the change.  Mine does not even have an Oil Slick.  My next car will have GPS, though.  Sometimes you just have to live large.  

Product Development Espionage does not involve much killing, but there is some.  I have some good killing tools but I am not too good at martial arts.  At most spy schools, martial arts are required, but at my school it was just an upper division elective.  My rule is JDLYG: Just Don't Lose Your Gun.  I had to kill someone once because they were actually going to tell on me, but usually it is just because of impatience.... somebody taking too long at the ATM and that kind of thing.  The one thing that they really don't teach you, though, is that killing is HARD.  You think it is just pulling a trigger or making a stabbing motion, but that is only the beginning.  Under certain atmospheric conditions, blood is a lot like tar.

My favorite is poison, but it is a little hard to administer in some circumstances like at the ATM.  And you always have to remember which drink is which.  Radiation is good too, but you usually have to wait YEARS, sometimes GENERATIONS for it to take effect.  

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I look back on my career in spying and I have few regrets.  I got to travel and see the inside of corporate America, usually without its permission.  I used to like to say I was ripping off the Man, but I don't say that much any more, because I have a few investments in the Man and they do okay.