It's Friday morning, and we just had a two-hour pow-wow with these public relations "experts."

Christ, what a couple of douchebags. I. mean. DOUCHEBAGS. It was just awful. Prisoners at Guantanamo have had better meetings with their interrogators.

Douche: Function: noun
1 a) : a jet or current especially of water directed against a part or into a cavity of the body b) : an act of cleansing with a douche

Douchebag: Function: noun
1 a) : the couple of douchebags that came to speak with us this morning.

The discussion was billed as a way to "bridge the divide between PR and journalism." (Red flags go up right there.) The guys would talk a lot about their side of things, what they do, and try to offer insight on how we could best work together.

Do not run. We are your friends. We come in peace.

The only interesting part was a lively debate on the degree of disclosure, financial or otherwise, appropriate within the media in this day and age. So of course the douchebags quickly moved on.

We got into VNRs and other ways PR people "help us to do our jobs better." (groan) It's a good thing Davique wasn't there - the poor guy would have gone into convulsions and dropped dead of a heart attack.

I mean, this guy - this guy just SITS there and TELLS us when he puts out a public affairs VNR for some politician in buttfuck Wisconsin, he absolves himself of any attempts at manipulation since he "thought the local station would do edits."

My hand shoots up like a lightning rod, but since I'm shaking my head and uncontrollably fuming, naturally they pass me by - during the entire two hour session - and instead decide to call on all the cute girls around me.

(What, I'm just sayin... Men are weak like that, you disagree?)

I mean, if these guys are just about trying to "help us get the right information," then why may I ask do they format all their video news releases - and print press releases - to resemble edited news footage and spot news stories, respectively? Why don't they just give us the info? Isn't there something inherently deceitful in packaging something like that? Where you force us to do extra work - chop it all up, sort through the bullshit news presentation, and extract the unspun details?

Why do PR people do that if they're not - on some level - trying to fool the more naive reporters out there and spin 'em?

Of course, this never came up specifically, because they never called on me. And they were such fucking blowhards that I never found a good opportunity to interject.

I kept looking helplessly at our program director, not sure whether I loved or hated her for bringing these douchebags here, for all of our douching needs. On one level it was like peeling the skin off your body, but then again it's good to be exposed to the Dark Side.

Towards the end, one of the guys says, "Well, this has been really cathartic!" Somehow, I managed not to spring out of my seat, leap across the table, and punch him in the face. Try the opposite of catharsis, a-hole.

It put me in such a shitty mood, I had to go outside and get some air. Take a walk - find my happy place again. I walked past the dumb fucking T-shirt vendors on fucking G street, past the dumb fuckin homeless guy who's dumb because he's homeless and I meant to remember to bring my leftover sandwiches today so now I feel guilty and I wouldn't feel that way if this guy weren't homeless so it's all his fucking fault, past the fucking Treasury and the dumb fucking duck, along with the dumb fucking tourists standing there like idiots staring at a fucking bird, past the dumb fucking hippies protesting outside the fucking White House, and the even dumber fucking president inside the White House.

Conclusion, within the span of three hours: The world is fucking dumb. Happy Friday. (fuckers.)