Athanasius Finch: Private Dick | ONC 2020

Plan F

For what little I could recover from the jumbled mess that was the "Self-Written" Biography of Sir Athanasius Finch, one could glimpse that his many problems started the day he was born, as his parents tried to trade him for a bag of Dolmades and 30 drachmas, as the ongoing rate for children went during that time. 

At the tender age of 5 — which was actually 20, since he was born on a leap year — his parents pulled a "reverse deadbeat" by sending him out for cigarettes, and uprooting the house, foundation and all, before he returned. The state took him in as a foster child, but since nobody wanted a 20-year-old manchild, he was pawned for a pocket watch and a Sony video cassette that could also reproduce Betamax. If you don't know what those are, imagine an MP3 that you had to rewind with a pencil.   

It was there that he learned how to tinker with machines with only a hammer, a few tacs, and a lot of elbow grease, which he would milk every night before bed. He soon found himself splicing different materials and forging them into intricate furniture that were credibly impractical, but an excellent conversation starter, like his now-infamous stainless steel beanbag which inspired that one weird writer to create a book series about some dragons and a throne of swords or some stupid stuff like that. 

He soon rose through the ranks of the rich and famous, thinking himself some kind of reincarnation of Hephaestus himself. Since both are deformed forge gremlins, I could see the resemblance. The idea got so deep into his mind that he decided to pool all of his money into a pantheon to his image, one he chose to erect in Manhattan's 715 East Street. And what a building it was!

Luscious Corinthian columns adorned a porch that hid a pure marble statue of Hephaestus. The building was lined with white plaster, made to appear faded by time. The lobby's floor shone and squeaked thanks to the pure Italian granite it was made of.

But, of course, since this is Athanasius we are speaking of, you know that he used every page on "The Scumbag Book On How To Get Away With Being A Cheap Bastard"(soon on a Barnes and Selfish near you) to squeeze every drop out of the building materials, mostly by not using cement, but rather gravity to hold it all together. He also skimmed on floors, windows, heating, plumbing, painting, and even a proper parking lot. 

Aside from the beautiful columns, and the detailed statue, and the squeaking floors, everything else was like the best kind of marshmallow — fluff. Of course, he also skimmed on the workforce, hiring the cheapest contractors he could find, which were like two guys and a burro operating out of the kitchen section of an IKEA, and just like any IKEA furniture, the worker's will crumbled under the pressure of creating a Jenga tower of OSHA violations. 

Legend has it that one day, a worker had enough. As he labored under the scorching heat, he thought to himself "This must be worse than death," so he decided to test that theory.

Witness testimony said he made a 360 backflip when jumping from the top floor—which was technically the first floor, since there were no ceilings — while singing "Livin' La Vida Loca - Shrek Remix." I don't know why it was that specific version, but Shrek works in mysterious ways. 

Of course, being the Fortnite-Dancing scumbag that he was, Anastasius sued the family of the worker for damages against his property. The other workers, standing in solidarity with his comrade, unionized, arguing that an employee has the right to commit suicide as a form of resignation and that employers must guarantee the right to a fair death. And thus, the Association of Suicide Workers was born. They eventually won the lawsuit, which I sadly can't find much information of as the chapters in the biography that cover this part of his life are filled with racially-charged expletives against the Swedish, Youtuber personality PewDiePie, and a theory on why the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand directly lead to the creation of selfie sticks.