All In A Days Work

There you are, playing Blackjack in a posh Monte Carlo casino. Cuban cigar in one hand, stack of thousand dollar chips in the other. You are exchanging looks with woman in a white satin evening gown and a man in a neatly pressed tuxedo with a patch over one eye. Knowing that while you sit here either of these people could be working on a plot to sell secret government documents to the highest bidder or overthrow the world’s turnip industry and leave the hearty stew business a smoldering wreckage for many years to come. You are a spy.

It wasn’t always like this though; no you used to just be a regular person. You never decided to be a spy, you were selected. You see, no one volunteers to be a covert agent, they’re just picked. There is no application process. Clearly this would do little good.

Somewhere somehow, someone looks at you and says, this person looks really sneaky. I believe I could mold them into a disguise loving, bullet dodging, gadget craving spy!

Once someone decides that you’ve got what it takes to become an agent you still have a lot of work ahead of you. In order to become who you are, you had to go though years of extensive training. You had to be the best at everything. No one wants a mediocre spy. You should be the best card player, the best drinker, the best puncher. You equally excel at flying jet airplanes, riding motorcycles, and piloting boats while engaged in a fist fight and hurtling biting personal comments at your spy foes. A spy who can not belittle their enemy while defending themselves will be bounced out the program faster than you can say "fake passport".

In addition to vehicular navigation 101, judo sessions and your next biting retort lessons; you also have to learn how to use your spy gadgets. When you become a spy you will have to know how to use a variety of improbable devices. Anything from decoder rings, camera tripods that assemble into guns and secret clothing compartments that store acid toothpaste or radio pencil transmitters. First off you need to know how to use them, so you don’t inadvertently brush your gleaming white spy teeth with glass eating acid toothpaste. This always makes for a bad mission.

Secondly though you need to have a hoard of excuses up your sleeve. It’s not just a matter of understanding how to identify acid toothpaste from your Colgate but also good way to wriggle out of a tight spot when you're caught using it.

“Why were you on the outside of the building around the twenty-second floor smearing toothpaste on my office window?”

“Ah, yes. Well you see I'm on the night cleaning crew...”

If you make it through your training, you will be the elite of the elite. Then the real work begins. Now you’re a secret agent. It’s your job to do whatever the home office tells you. Mostly this will involve having to insert yourself into the local political machine and direct the world, as required by your government, all the while maintaining your cover. Better keep your weekends free from now on.

So it seems you’re off to the Malaysian capital to thwart a plan hatched by a villainous mastermind to harvest refined plutonium from the moons of Jupiter. {Sigh} All in a days work.

17 comments:

Sornie said...

You can't forget that as a spy you must always have a woman attached to your arm or one readily available to take that position. Not that I'm a spy or anything, just heard it from a friend of a friend who knows a guy.

Peter Brown said...

Sornie -

Thanks for stopping by!

Not a spy eh?

.. "friend of a friend who knows a guy." Right. Don't worry Sornie,(if that is your real name) I won't dream of breaking you cover!

J Crew said...

I would want a shoe phone like agent 86.

Anonymous said...

I was a spy once....

Peter Brown said...

Brendan-

Actually no that's different, we call people like you 'stalkers'...

...don't feel bad, it's confusing.

Peter Brown said...

J Crew-

Given technology today, I bet that would be doable...

...are you left footed or right footed?

Ando said...

What kind of vacation time does it offer?

Anonymous said...

Well, that would certainly explain why I didn't wear a tux. And come to think of it, my fake Russian accent could use a little work too..

Peter Brown said...

Ando-

As long as you consider scaling electric fences in a three piece suit and blowing plastic explosives balls through a harmless looking pencil casing a vacation...

...there's loads of it!

Jason Michael Shuttlesworth said...

Ah, to be a spy. . .

I actually (why???) went to the CIA homepage and discovered that spies really don't make that much money. . .@30,000/year.

You do, however, meet interesting people.

Peter Brown said...

Brendan -

It's funny how bad the accent's are in these movies! I just watched a Danger Man episode last night from Netflixs.

This one had a obviously Caucasian person pretending to be Chinese, by squinting their eyes and laying on a HORRIBLE accent!

Ando said...

Jason - Ha! I've done the same thing. There must be other "perks" that aren't listed in the job description.

Peter Brown said...

Jason & Ando-

I can find what you two found. If you could post it I'd like to see it!

I did find this rather odd career choice pamphlet.Clandestine Careers

Ando said...

Here's the Clandestine Services careers page. Looks like the salaries have gone up a little.

https://www.cia.gov/careers/clandestine.html

Jason Michael Shuttlesworth said...

This is from the Clandestine Careers web site,

"By the very nature of this clandestine business, officers can expect limited external recognition for themselves and their families"

So does this mean if the Kludge becomes a spy, there will be a temporal hiatus of the Kludgespot?

Jason Michael Shuttlesworth said...

Something tells me, there's a little man from the CIA reading this blog right now.

Peter Brown said...

Jason-

Can I count it legitimate traffic?

If a hit falls in the forest without being tracked by the counter...