My old job was the worst. I hated it. I wasn’t too good at it either. My coworkers would say all sorts of things to me. Things like, “How could somebody be so bad at a job so simple?”
To be honest, I’m not sure what the job was. I just knew it had to do something with a computer. A computer that I kept spilling coffee on. “What’s all this coffee on your computer? And why is it so sticky?” That was another thing they’d say to me.
So I decided to take a career aptitude test to start anew. The test was pretty hard, but I managed to finish it and got my result: Henchman.
The testing people said I’d make a good henchman for two reasons. First, like I said, the test was kinda hard for me and I didn’t know what any of the questions were trying to ask. They said most non-henchmen people know what the questions are asking them. The only type of questions I know the answers to are trivia questions about chimps. Did you know if you throw a corn dog at one it’ll eat it? I learned that piece of trivia at my last trip to the zoo.
The second reason they said I’d make a good henchman was that my name is Humphrey.
Having your parents name you Humphrey is kind of like nepotism in the henchman world. You can work for any villain you want with a name like that. Other good names are Clyde, Brutus and Killface.
A lot of people wonder what the difference between a henchman and a lackey is. It’s mostly your posture.
I found a really good villain to work for, Dr. Lasertronicus. He gave me a uniform and everything. It’s a bit big, since I’m not as bulky as most of the henchmen, but I think I look pretty good in it. Also you don’t have to shave too often. Dr. Lasertronicus likes his henchmen with a five o’ clock shadow.
I also got issued a gun. I got to carry it around for a whole three days before my supervisor took it away because I had too many shooting accidents. They exchanged it for a knife, which I got to keep for a whole week.
Like most villains, Dr. Lasertronicus keeps a lot of incriminating things in a warehouse. I’m one of the henchmen that guards the warehouse.
There are a lot of cool things in there to guard, but I’m not allowed to play with any of them. They should have told me that during on-boarding. You expect to plop a guy down in front of a crate of freeze rays and not have him play with one? To not have him freeze his supervisor as a joke? Well anyway, they’ve since made it clear to me—no playing.
You might think that being a henchman is a pretty thrilling job, because you get to spend all day punching trespassers in the face and strapping them into a death trap. But you’d be wrong. This job might be as boring as my last. Most of the time you spend standing around the warehouse waiting. And whenever a so-called hero comes in, you usually get so excited you can’t think straight. Usually you and another henchman charge at him, and he slips right between you two causing you crash headfirst into the other henchman.
The worst part of getting knocked around by a hero is you’ve gotta make a dopey sound when you get hit. You’ve gotta be pretty good at going “doh” or “oof” if you want to be a henchman. And if you can make it so little stars float around your head and your eyes go all spirally you’ll probably get a raise.
The reason is it makes the trespasser really feel like they have a shot at taking down Dr. Lasertronicus. He likes to make them feel nice and cocky before he drops a big cage on them.
Once the trespasser is nice and caged it’s pretty easy to get them into a death trap. But they usually find a way to get out.
Dr. Lasertronicus makes some pretty good death traps, like the Angry Gorilla Pit, which is exactly what it sounds like. He also has some classics, like the sawmill you get strapped to, the laser cutter table, and the room where you’re forced to listen to talk radio until you’re bored to death.
But the problem with these traps is they’re all too slow. The gorillas take a while to get angry, and the sawmill moves at moderate, safe speed. It gives the person strapped in a lot of time to think of a plan. And I don’t know how often you interact with the kind of people who break into evil villain warehouses, but they’re pretty crafty. They always seem to escape.
I thought about going back to my old job, but I think I’ll stick around. The retirement plan is pretty good. And at the end of the day, I’m a lot better at this job. Mostly because there isn’t a coffee machine so I don’t have the chance to spill on anything.
