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Just minutes after firing defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, the Philadelphia Eagles introduced former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as his replacement. Eagles GM Andy Reid cited a long list of reasons he thinks Rumsfeld is the right man for the job. “Like me, he cops an incredibly arrogant, dismissive and patronizinng attitude with the news media, so I know we’ll be on the same page there,” noted Reid. “He also knows a lot about messing up defenses and sticking with a losing philosophy like the West Coast Offense or Neoconservatism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I like that quality and I am the decider here,” said Reid.

Rumsfeld immediately started pontificating on his plan to transform the defense by using “lightweight” formations of seven or eight special teams players instead of the traditional bloated 11-man defense used by every other NFL team in history. He also hinted at a top-secret unmanned “Red Zone Drone” scheme. He did, however express concern about being able to succeed with a salary cap that is less than $500 billion.

Eagles Owner Jeffrey Lurie concluded the presentation by assuring season ticket holders that the Eagles promising draft position will not be jeopardized. “Actually, I’m the decider,” quipped Lurie, “and besides, nobody else wanted the job.”

On the PANMA listserv, someone recently posted this tired old list of ten things that will get you fired. It’s just so yesteryear. Take #6:”Complain about your job to anyone who will listen.” Are they kidding? The complainers hang on like barnacles because management knows they’re the ones who go right out and get a big shot Jumpin’ Jack Flash jim-dandy employment lawyer. Lots of people quit jobs just to get away from the whiners that nobody has the guts to fire.

Stealing paperclips won’t even get you noticed, let alone fired any more. In today’s complex, freewheeling,”casual” workplaces, filled with nepotism, petty graft, patronage, apathy, backbiting, office politics and soul-eating busywork you have to go above and beyond the average transgression to get canned. But if you’re a really creative self-sabatoging dope who just can’t keep that psychiatrist appointment or follow simple restraining orders, then this list is for you.

Without further adieu, I present to you: 10 Things That Will REALLY Get You Fired:

1. Spend your first week making a colossal mashed potato sculpture of Bart Simpson in the reception area.
2. Ride your Shetland pony to work and insist on parking him in your cubicle.
3. Insert a copy of John Hinckley’s letter to Jodie Foster into your United Way contribution envelope.
4. Every office has a glass-walled conference room called “the fishbowl.” One night seal up the bottoms of the doors, fill the room with water and stock the new “fishbowl”. The sight of two dozen stolen koi darting between those expensive Herman Miller chairs will cement your status as legend and instantly make you a former employee.
5. Forget to put your Avenging Unicorn away at night.
6. Ask if you can hold a Narcotics Anonymous Meeting in the office after hours (bonus: When denied, ask to hold it in the company’s luxury stadium skybox on game day instead).
7. Become Donald Trump’s new hair stylist.
8. Forget to offer to lick your boss’s shoes clean each morning when you deliver her latte and Wall Street Journal.
9. Every day take home a wheelbarrow full of hay, explaining that the boss offered it as part of your compensation. As you leave, the security guard will eye you suspiciously, sift through the hay carefully, find nothing hidden in it and reluctantly wave you through. After ten days the security guard will say, “Ha! I caught you. You’ve been stealing wheelbarrows!” Explain that you actually returned the wheelbarrow each morning, but while the guard was searching the hay, your friends were taking all the plasma TVs down the freight elevator to a waiting truck.
10. On Take Our Daughters to Work Day, take Sam Donaldson instead.

I had a dream where David Copperfield shows up at the home of an average American family unannounced, kind of the like the Publisher’s Clearing House video crew. A woman, let’s call her Eunice, answers the door and invites the celebrity magician into her house. He pours ketchup onto her living room carpet, emptying an entire institutional-sized can. Her charm turns to horror when she sees a giant pool of ketchup soaking into her brand new expensive wool carpeting.

“Don’t worry,” says David Copperfield, “I’ll clean it up with my new carpet cleaner.”

David Copperfield then pulls some “magic tissues” out of his breast pocket, places them on the stain, does some fancy hand gestures and mutters some unintelligible phrases. The stain completely disappears in a few seconds.

Eunice: “That’s amazing.”
David Copperfield: “You can use it anytime you have stains on your carpets.”

Eunice: “Huh? How does it work? Do you sell the magic tissue?”

David Copperfield: “No, the tissue doesn’t really do anything. You just call and I show up and clean your carpets.”

Eunice: “That must be very expensive.”

David Copperfield: “I’m already extremely wealthy. I don’t really need much more money, so it’s a lot less than you might think.”

Eunice: “But what if you’re not available? There are millions of people who would call you. It would take forever for you to get to all of them.”

David Copperfield: “I’m a magician, I can pull that off pretty easily.”

I woke from my dream at this point. I imagine the show would end with a toll-free number and URL where you could subscribe to David Copperfield’s Carpet Cleaning Service.