Note: This article is satirical.
Hi, my name is Dakota James. I enjoy rainy days, long walks on the beach and faking my death. For the last year, I have been the Hall Monitor-Herald’s vegetable beat reporter, but before that, I was its seed beat reporter under the name Montana Jones.
To summarize: I faked my death to pursue a career in “Great Gatsby.” Although short-lived, my career eventually inspired “50 Shades of Gatsby,” which took the premise of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece to its logical, sexy conclusion. Highlights included 50 naked Gatsbys, of all different colors, each loudly shouting a different interpretation of the American Dream.
I am proud of my achievements in this field.
Inevitably, though, Fitzy-fever came to an end, and America moved on to Melville-mania. As “50 Shades of Moby” took over book stands across America, I returned to the HMH under the name Dakota James. Although I was asked point-blank at the interview if I was just Montana Jones wearing a mustache, I was too embarrassed to come clean (Particularly after that touching memorial service, during which Big Bird, Kermit and Joseph Gordon Levitt sang the Oscar Meyer Weiner song).
But then last week, the inevitable happened: the HMH got a Necronomicon for our birthday, and our boss, the embalmed corpse of Old Man Potter, demanded that I go to the local pet cemetery and revive Montana Jones, who, again, is me.
This presented a classic moral dilemma. Would I come clean about faking my death, or find some kind of wacky, convoluted scheme to get out of this whole mess? Ultimately, I raised my father, Montana Jones Sr. from the grave, and hoped no one could tell the difference.
He was not pleased to see me.
“Montana,” he croaked, his lungs still adjusting to oxygen. “You’ve wasted your life.”
“Quiet you,” I told him, as my illiterate peers from the HMH approached the scene of my father’s tombstone. “I don’t have time to explain this, old man. But, from now on, you’re me and I’m nobody, kapeesh?”
Struck by newfound confidence and clearly more interested in eating Tony Frank’s brains, Dad wandered off to satisfy his craving for flesh.
Ever since, things have been peachy keen. I get to work in a lighthouse with my dad, who is pretending to be me, while I pretend to be someone else, who has a very similar name to my father, who is me.
Also, Karen from reception will surely notice me someday soon. And, as Aquamarine Gatsby always said, “That’s the real American Dream.”
The Hall Monitor-Herald is written by Lauren Funai, Niles Hachmeister, Chris Vanjonack and Andrew Walker. Like us on Facebook and help us learn how to read so we know what our good friend wrote about this week.
