I have enrolled in the London School of Puppetry

 on my GI bill, or so I have announced to a couple of people here at work. I am going to go for a Master's degree in the fine art of puppetry.

Of course, I am not but it is funny to see the look on their faces when I tell them. Actually I only told a couple because that is all I have to do. Seamen are 6.376 times worse than little old ladies in the gossip department.

Now people come up to me with "I heard you're going back to school to learn to do puppets."

"Yeah," I tell them. "It's a career on the upswing and I'm going to try and get into it on the bottom floor."

Most of them that have dealt with me simply say, "Yeah, right." and shake their heads, but a few press me for more details which I make up on the spot. I told one kid that a skilled puppeteer can make $25,000 per Punch and Judy show. The idiot believed me.

I'd give pretty good odds the guy went straight to the nearest computer and headed straight to the London School of Puppetry website and it would not surprise me much to find out that this particular guy signed right up.

This puppetry business has been rolling around in my head since I read that someone got a Master's degree in puppetry and is complaining that he can't enter the work force at some outrageous amount of money and it has stuck in my head.

I no longer use the term 'degree in underwater basket making' anymore because I like the term 'Master's in puppetry'. It has a more worthlesss ring to it than underwater basket weaving. At least to be an underwater basket weaver you have to be able to stay underwater for a while and you can at least take that particular skill and do something else with it.

There is a shortage of pearl divers these days, for example. You can embark on a thrilling career as a pearl diver with little more than the skills you have learned in your course in underwater basket weaving.

If you couple pearl diving with high diving you can likely save the money you make finding pearls because it will keep your dating expenses down. Chicks on tropical vacations think high diver types are hot. When you add the fact that you are also wrestling pearls out of giant man-eating oysters, you will be a shoo-in with the babes.

As far as being a puppeteer goes, forget it. The only chicks you are likely to score with are of the fat, ugly as home made sin, braided armpit hippie set that are little more than whiney headaches. There ain't no money in pupperty, and there ain't no nookie in it to speak of. Get used to having your money hand empty and your other hand full of yourself.

I wonder what the guy with the Master's in puppetry does these days. I suppose if I were him I'd try and organize some sort of career counseling center for people with useless degrees. You could likely make a few bucks there, either counseling people with meaningless degrees or steering people toward degrees that will lead to being able to learn something marketable.

It wouldn't take a whole lot to do, all you have to do is be sincere and slick and you'd have a pretty good little racket there that would likely make you more money than putting faces on latte coffee drink foam. You don't even really have to be sincere, you just have to act it.

I have practice with being sincere from taking my cat for a walk on a leash with my cane and sunglasses. "Yes, Ma'am. The cat really is a guide animal," is something I have told any number of people over the years. I also told someone that blind people are permitted to carry firearms to protect their guide animals.

Hmmm. As I write this, things are now beginning to make sense. Maybe you can do something wwith a meaningless degree. If the guy with the degree in puppetry can't get it together and start a meaningless degree career counseling service he has another alternative.

He can hire a press agent and have himself posted as the best latte foam artist in the world and get suckers to come into his coffeeshop and pay $50 to have him draw in the foam of the coffee they have just ordered. After all, P.T. Barnum was right. There IS a sucker born every minute.

A lot of these suckers Old P.T. was talking about get degrees in underwater basket weaving and puppetry.



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