Monkey on My Back

August 7, 2013

Dear Diary,

Today was a total disaster. Oh there was plenty of collateral damage and a good number of dead and injured law abiding citizens, but no real success where it matters. My cause shows no advancement. None! Am I surprised? No. Am I shocked that another plan of mine completely failed? Not at all. Maybe mother was right. Maybe I should’ve gone into real estate. Failing to sell a house can’t possibly be any worse than failing to rule the world.

What happened? I suppose I should begin at the beginning. It all started with that notorious king of catastrophe, Dr. Astic. Yes, I know, worst villain name ever! It takes everything I have not to call him Dr. Spastic. Ugh. Anyways, Dr. Astic unilaterally decided, yet again, that my plan wasn’t extreme enough. I don’t know why I keep hiring him. I mean, for Pete’s sake, the man’s motto is Drastic times call for Dr. Astic measures! Which is far better than his old motto There is no problem so large that blowing it up won’t solve it! The last time I hired him to build me something, it ended up exploding over Russia. Dr. Astic is a walking doomsday device, yet, I keep bringing him back on board. Is there something wrong with me?

Caligula just reminded me that I hire the good doctor because he is extremely cheap.

And that he needs more tuna. The cat, not the doctor.

Note to self: Stop by Food King after tomorrow’s assault on city hall.

Caligula is correct, about both the tuna and the doctor. I keep returning to Dr. Astic because he is as cheap as chips. And not even very good chips either. I am talking those bargain bin chips that are all broken up and half burnt but you eat them anyways because you don’t really have anything else to snack on and you are far too tired to drag yourself out to get another bag of something better. While his affordability is part of his charm, he is also very easy on the eyes. And yes, okay I admit we do have a bit of a romantic past. But who can blame me? It gets lonely being a sadistic villainess. I consider Astic a fiend with benefits. The man is tall and handsome, a little older than I usually date, and soft in the middle but in a squeezable way. He has one of those wild smiles that make you squirm a bit in your seat when he turns it on. Shame he is out of his tiny little mind. Sigh. Where was I?

Oh yes, my plan.

It was simple as taking life support from a comatose baby.

I began by having Bart—I only wished the rest of my staff were as reliable as my dear Bartholomew—design me a giant mechanical ape, and I made the mistake of letting Astic build it for me. The ape was created much in the spirit of a certain king of the apes, only with lasers for eyes and missile launchers in his palms and giant rotating saw blades for teeth. The ape had one job to do. One job! Climb the Fairfax Building and plant my flag at the top. After that, it was supposed to self destruct by falling apart, raining cogs and wires and saw blade teeth and bits of fake monkey fur all over the city. That was it. Well, that and destroy anyone who got in its way, but seriously, that was the only thing it had to do. The flag planting was part of a much larger design. The reason isn’t important, just understand that I needed that metal mechanical monkey to climb the building, plant the flag and fall apart.

What I didn’t need for it to do was to announce that in sixty seconds it would plant the flag and then explode in a spectacular rain of fire.

Guess what happened once the ape started its countdown.

Go on. Guess.

That’s right. Captain Sterling swooped in and got rid of it, while it was still clutching my flag. Imagine my embarrassment to watch that pea brained moron fly in and grab my monkey, yank it off, give it a good pounding and then just throw it away, taking my glorious message of future world domination with it.

I suppose it was a doomed plan to start with. I mean, the flag wouldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, sure, but that wasn’t the point. The memory of the event would’ve lived on in that magic world of rewind and pause that is the modern media. That was the point. Still, I guess I could achieve the same effect in so many other ways. Something without a giant mechanical punching bag. No need to give the “hero” something to focus on and use to make a mockery of me. Or in this case, a monkery of me. Okay, it wasn’t Dr. Astic’s fault. It was mine, for trusting him with this project. As they say, I knew he was a snake when I picked him up. A crazy, crazy snake.

Not a literal snake. No. Dr Cobra fits that sort of thing.

What I am trying to confess here is that I may have overreacted a teensy weensy bit to Astic’s redesign of my mechanical ape.

Note to self: Release what is left of Astic from the shark tank.

This draws another entry to a close, dear diary. Perhaps next time I will have something successful to report. Probably not, but one can hope. I’m off to see a man about a dog. By man I mean an ancient sorcerer who owes me a favor, and by dog I mean a ten foot tall hound of hell I intend to make the subject of said favor. 

Ciao!

Sylvia