By
H. Kent Craig
The scene: Egypt, the Nile river area known as the "valley of the kings", five thousand and some odd years ago. Work has just about been complete on the pyramid for the Pharoe's wife, Queen Latiffa, just some punch-list items left mainly to do. Next door, thousands of slaves and hundreds of highly-paid craftsmen and subcontractors toil away under the unrelenting eye of Ra, the sun god of honest sweat, doing their bit to insure the immortality of the soul of their beloved king by building the most glorious pyramid yet for their pharonic king Luxor Hotel Casino The Second. In the mix of this hustle and bustle stands a small circle of job tents that house the on-site operations of all the subcontractors for the job, from stone masons to layout surveyors to barge logistical operations brokers to slave labor contractors not to be confused with the on-site union and non-union hiring halls next door to the franchise holder for bronze tools sales to our own Pete Papyrus-Pusher's "Grande Clivus Multrum Plumbing Company" tent, where our humble pyramid plumbing project manager sits across his limestone block-desk from Jackal's Asp, the project manager for "Raid The Royal Treasury General Pyramid Contracting & Brown-Nosing Service Company". Let's listen in to a bit of their conversation, shall we?
"Pete, when is your superintendent coming back from his vacation of what is to become the south of Gaul in a couple of thousand years? You know Queen Latiffa is insisting that only he be allowed to install the royal thermal tub in her funerary chamber, ever since his crew accidentally installed the drain piping for her spiritual ether upside down."
"I still say Jackass, pardon me, Jackal's Asp, that it's impossible to install a round terra cotta or any other kind of pipe upside down, especially one that's meant to convey the invisible waste products of a non-physical soul out of an otherwise sealed tomb."
"But she's our queen and if she says the damned pipe was installed upside down, then it was installed up-side-down. More to the point, who she wants to do anything, she gets, got it?"
"Yeah, I've been gettin' it since Day One on this job."
"Me too, we've all been getting it since the first day. That's what happens when you work for rich folks let alone royalty who happens to represent the head of our gods incarnate on this miserable piece of rock which our sun god revolves around."
"Oh, before I forget, I need you to cartouche this change order, if you will, buddy ol' pal of mine?"
"What now? Let me see. Jesus!, I should say Monotheistic Representative Savior Of Mankind That Won't Be Born For Another Three Thousand Years Or So, you need to add three more privy holes and claytile piping away from them to the Pharoe's public restrooms outside the deathtrap deadmen's sliding deathblock reception and eternal resting area for those tormented souls that dare defile our king's tomb? Where the hell I should say Philosophical Concept Of Similar Eternal Punishment Which Also Won't Be Conceived Of For Another Couple Of Millennia did this come from? Certainly not from my office!"
"Nope, from that new engineer just hired from the new province of outer islands known for their great Greek salads."
"What's it called, this province?"
"I don't know. Point is, this new engineer says the new plumbing code he brought with him as a gift from his gods to our gods require fifty more percent clivus multrum facilities for the women's privy area than the men's, that's where this change order came from."
"But five thousand years from now not a single skeletal remain found will be female, all the graverobbers whose eternally damned souls need to take a spiritual dump will be men."
"Don't argue with me, Jack's Ass, errrrr, Jackal's Asp, the plumbing code of the polytheistic pantheon of gods is the plumbing code of those who at least think they're part of the polytheistic pantheon of gods, don't argue, just stylize your initials into this wet clay tablet, okay?"
"Okay. But don't forget, five years ago when I awarded you this contract, you promised to install both the plumbing in my new hovel out near the village of West Nile Virus and put me in a carved blue limestone private job privy next to my tent for gratis and I've been promised to and promised to and haven't seen hide nor hair of your workmen doing either. I'll sign the change order, sure, but you gotta scratch my back in return, got it?"
"Sure. You still don't have body lice, do you?"
"No, the on-site medical sorcerer gave me some balm that made them go away. Speaking of our resident suppository of medicinal plant knowledge, have the new guys you hired last week done their drug screens yet?"
"Now, Hyena's Ass, I mean Jack-aaaaa, you know that supposedly there's no trade between what will come to be known across the sea as Columbia in the south and North Carolina in the north, respectively, and us for a few thousand years, so how can my guys be doing what will be eventually called 'drugs'?"
"When I see brown splatters of sickly recent-chewed goo on fresh white limestone paver stones, and when I see guys on lunch break rolling finely pulverized leaves of some plant unknown to our indigenous botany into loose papyrus tubes and then smokin' them and then acting all relaxed like they've had sex just minutes before or start eating everything in the commissary, sucking on our native lotus blossoms I know they haven't been, so over to the drug screen tent they go."
"No problem. Oh, don't forget, the inspector from the Royal Safety Rules By God is coming over tomorrow to look at our sealed engineered drawings for the scaffolding you'll need to be using."
"Scaffolding? SCAFFOLDING? This moron wants us to put scaffolding around the entire pyramid?!? We'll be the laughing stock for the rest of recorded history!"
"Don't argue with me, argue with him. Last time he did a pop inspection, I was fined thirty bushels of dried dates for having my standing buckets of water for fire extinguishment not properly dated and certified."
"Hu? You're not using fire on this job at all, not even to keep your guys warm at night when they work on premium time."
"Tell me about. Just remember to have your scaffolding drawings ready tomorrow when he comes."
"Scaffolding the great Pharoe's pyramind . . . scaffolding the Pharoe's pyramind, can you believe that??!!?? You might as well slap me and call me OSHA The Moronic, not Pharonic!"