A while back, I ran into a cousin of mine who informed me of an employment opportunity at the company where he worked.

The details of the position were sketchy, but it was a "great opportunity," with "your own hours" and "excellent money." Having recently come to the conclusion that life just above the poverty line was losing its scrappy charm, I arranged for a confab at his office.

The next morning, I dug out a navy blazer, a wrinkled Ragu-stained white button-down shirt, staple-hemmed chinos, and a black leather tie circa 1979 (from my Unemployed Guys OnlyTM attire-filled closet) and hopped into my cherry red '78 (Chev) 'Vette, eager to learn a tad more about this

dream position.

My cousin's firm was located just off New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, in an office 'campus' -- one of those highly speculative early 80's real estate boom projects that enriched S&L scumbags like Charles Keating. Once teeming with phony "market research" scam operations and matchbook cover law firms, these now-underpopulated chrome and tinted-glass office structures looked like they were designed after a rejected background cel from the Jetsons. I think they were called Platinum Omni Millennium 2000 - Phase III, or something.