My official title at WebTV is “Smut Queen” (and I’m sure if I’m ever given business cards and a parking space and a brass nameplate for my cubicle, they will all be emblazoned with said title) (or maybe you have to be an actual employee of the company and not just a temp before they give you those things) (hmm). I assume that the original holder of this title was a woman, hence the feminine appellative, but mine is not to question why, only to uphold the honor of the name.

So here’s how it works. If you’ve spent any time on the web trawling for pornography (you know, in order to get your finger on the pulse of current human depravity, so you’re in-the-know whilst watching Rather/Koppel/Jennings), then you know about Surfwatch. Surfwatch is this thingie (it’s my technical knowledge that has allowed to me catapult up the ranks at WebTV) that blocks “adult” sites, so your kids or emotionally-immature significant others won’t be able to visit such seminal sites as “The Just-Turned-Eighteen Bottomless Cheerleader Yearbook” or “Midgets Have Sexy Genitals Just Like Everyone Else.” Surfwatch compiles a list of these sites, adding new ones every day (now THERE’S the job to have, working at Surfwatch, baby, that’s where it’s at … I think they’re somewhere here in N. California, too). Now, WebTV, in its unending quest to serve, has added the Surfwatch option to their system so Concerned Parents can keep things at home under control (which has resulted in us receiving some suspicious e-mails saying stuff like: “hi their i AM MR. WILLIAMSON PLEAESE stop SERF WAtcH nowthank yo”).

But sometimes, once in a great while, due to the frenzied and fecund nature of the web, a potentially offensive site will appear before Surfwatch has a chance to add it to their system. And those quick-witted WebTV users somehow manage to find those sites IMMEDIATELY and write/call us in horrified indignation. Here’s an actual transcript from a recent call to our phone center:

CUSTOMER: Well get a load of this, missy. My grandson was doing research for a paper on dinosaurs and he came across something called “Dinosaur-Sized Penises From Down Under.” Now this was with Surfwatch on! That boy’s gone straight to therapy coz he’s not exactly hung like his ole grandpaw here. What are you gonna do about this? CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE: I’m going to go shoot myself because I have the worst job in the history of mankind.

Actually, that was entirely fabricated. No WebTV user would ever be able to speak that many coherent sentences in a row without consulting pre-written notes [The sound you now hear is me waving bye-bye to my job and financial security. Oh well.]. Anyhow, if such a call did come in, the Dinosaur site would be passed on to me where I would check it out and determine if it was, indeed, Offensive. Here’s where it gets tricky. I mean, for instance, Dinosaur-Sized Penises From Down Under is, of course, inherently offensive. But what about Dinosaur-Sized Penises From Down Under: A Medical Conundrum? You see, it’s a fine line I walk each day. If I do decide it’s offensive, then I pass it on to the hardworking homies at Surfwatch.

The problem with this is that it’s not really a full-time job. In fact, I’d say it’s about 1/10,000th of my job there, with the remaining percentage spent answering emails and making long-distance phone calls. But I like to go around saying I’m a Full-Time Smut Queen because everyone gets severely jealous, and that’s all I want out of a career, really.