I’ll be done for when the robots take over…laid off! Sayonara, man. You’re welcome for all those years of holding the door for you old ladies, none of you remembering your please-and-thank yous, at least not when a security guard’s done the door opening. Talk about the invisible man. When I bite my tongue, I’m not just holding back a fucking fuck—I’m seeing if I still bleed.

You may not see me but I can see you. Blaming some ten dollars-an-hour-teller when you overdraw your shit. Sure, money talks. But in Bank of America, it barks and shrieks four-letter words. You can bet your first born those inconsistent at money management in no way remember basic courtesies when yours truly smiles, “Have a good day.”  Yeah, I’m halfway sarcastic when I say it, but the big boys responsible for my own ten dollars-an-hour want people feeling important when they bounce another check and pay jacked-up overdraft fees.

But then one day some pocket-protector geek in Japan’s gonna build the security guard robot and, last book I read on the subject, androids don’t need no food on the table or six-packs on Friday nights. Just change the D-cell batteries—or whatever robots run on—and Mr. A.I. will be peppy and, sure as shit, all the little brats sucking on bankrolled lollipops will be slapping high five with C3PO, thinking the future’s hip.

It’s a sterile future all right— technology will take care of that. But a guy like me in the prime of his physical life—young, dumb, and full of cum! Hey, two out of three ain’t bad! Young ladies, you bet the Invisible Man’s checking out your derrieres singing in them skinny jeans. You may write me off as just another card-carrying member of the Walking Undead, but I’m made of soft flesh and hot blood, just like you. And we security guards have vivid imaginations, believe me. Just the right amount too: asking your candy ass on a date’s nothing doing, but taking you in the vault and bending you perpendicular in my head’s just the mental tonic to pass the duller hours, yeah!

Now don’t go charging nice guys with misogyny, right? What we’ve got here’s a coping mechanism, a prerequisite in the customer service and protection industry. You see, there’s just no love for the security guard, never mind his hat-tipping to sourpussies or his first response importance when some crackhead Robin Hood comes wheeling in screaming for unmarked bills and no funny business, all that claptrap they learned in the movies. The security guard doesn’t have a friend in Hollywood. Who’s the first guy getting his ass blown away? Mr. Rent-a-Cop. Yeah, we are often taken hostage, true, and it also stands that more than a few situations end with us getting our Grim Reaper appointment thirty years early, but what about those occasional times a security guard apprehends the dirt bag?  Judging by Hollywood’s track record, we never save nothing: bottom-rung keystone kops, shit.

So what’s a proud man clinging to his humanity’s supposed to do in the face of such formidable indifference? It might not look like it because my profession does attract its share of ne’er-do-wells, lowlifes, and probationary recidivists, but security is actually a thinking man’s job. How much effort you think it really takes to smile at some stumblebum? This means 99% of my cranial capacities are focused on the extracurricular—philosophical inquiries and cultural anthropology, for example.

And then there’s the screenplay. I’m probably the only security guard you’ll find packing a pocket-sized recording device. You would have noticed too if you could see the Invisible Man. But being that the college boys with delusions of power running the operation are the only ones that can see me and they really don’t like security guards having too much initiative, it’s in my best interest to perpetuate unfair stereotypes. Though it may sometimes seem I have a bad cough, allergies or something, that’s me whispering with the REC button on:

INT. BANK OF AMERICA – DAY

Dumb-ass bankrobbers storm BofA with guns blazing screaming Sioux Indian chief bullshit, scaring everybody. Daryl, our startled hero, commits a charging kamikaze, samurai-slamming Dumb-ass Robber #1 through the bulletproof glass. Retrieving sawed-off shotgun from floor, he takes aim at Dumb-ass Robber #2.

DARYL

(brave and sexy)

This is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me.

Daryl blows Robber # 2 to Kingdom Come.

And so on. Probably have to find a part for a sex kitten as the male thirteen-to-thirty-five audience is good for attendance so long as he gets enough explosions and titties onscreen.

That’s the plan. Bring it on, Japanese geeks. Make that fucking android. Obsolete me like you did the elevator operator. Let’s dance, nerds. Build all the robots you want, but you’ll never build one that can replace the thinking man.

The Invisible Man’s coming soon to a theater near you and when he arrives he won’t be invisible anymore—he’ll just be The Man.

Until then, “Have a nice day and thank you very much.”