With James Bond casting reportedly underway, I would like to make a suggestion, if I may be so bold. Instead of a 007 who is handsome, smooth, and combat-trained, what if we went with a 40-year-old guy who is allergic to bees? That’s right. I’d like to propose that the next James Bond be me.
I can picture it now. I walk into a bar (somewhere exotic like Grand Rapids) wearing my nicest pair of sweats and sporting an oversized Detroit Lions t-shirt. The bartender, an attractive woman, looks at me, intrigued. Taking me in, undressing me with her eyes, she asks what I’ll have to drink. Only, I don’t hear her because the music is too loud, and I had an ear infection last month. She thinks I’m flirting, playing hard to get. I’m not. I just genuinely can’t hear her.
I smile at her briefly before dropping eye contact and looking down at my phone, which has a massive crack in the screen. While I fake scroll through my contacts, I mumble, “Miller Lite, cold not hot.” The mention of a hot beer confuses her at first, but eventually she hands me the bottle. I pay my bill in loose change.
The sexual tension remains palpable.
At the opposite end of the bar sits my next target, a henchman, whose name and identity I’ll never know. With his eyes locked on me, I rise from my barstool slowly because I hurt my back loading groceries last week and my chiropractor was booked out for a month. The henchman does the same, only without the struggle. Perhaps he has his groceries delivered?
I walk and he follows closely, perhaps noticing the piece of toilet paper that’s stuck to my New Balance shoes. It’s a game of cat and mouse that would make Tom and Jerry proud. It wouldn’t make my cat Tim proud though because he despises me.
Arriving at the dance floor, the henchman grabs my shoulder from behind. I wince because it hurts. I am certain that it will bruise. Oh well, that’s a worry for another time. Or is it? I quickly pull out my phone and schedule an appointment with my doctor for some time the following week. Relieved, I almost forget that this nameless thug still has hand on my shoulder. Almost, but not quite. As this behemoth asks me my name, I turn around ever so slowly.
“Bond, James Bond,” I say, before quickly following with, “Or whatever you want my name to be because you're big, and you scare me.” But what he doesn’t know, what this stone-faced assassin couldn’t possibly know, is that I have the pink pepper spray that my mom gave me when I went to college in my sweatpant pocket.
Without advance notice, I pull it out and spray wildly. Yikes! The nozzle is in the wrong direction and the substance spurts directly into my pupils. My enemy crouches down next to me on the floor, taking pity on me and suggesting that we handle our business another day (possible sequel?). He carries me to the door with the help of the bartender who was obsessed with me when I walked in.
I drive home, crying and listening to a self-help book, while the two of them engage in a steamy sexual encounter at the bartender's bohemian apartment.
With that, the theme song begins to play as I limp forward to my mark. I turn abruptly and pull the trigger on my gun as other Bonds have done before. Suddenly, my back gives out, and I fall to the floor. Thankfully, the safety is on, so the gun didn’t fire. I turn the safety off and fire the gun from my spot on the ground so that the blood can flow down the screen and the opening credits can officially begin.
Oh, blood flows alright—blood from the wound where I accidentally shot myself in the leg. I cry in pain throughout the entirety of the opening credits as Bruce Springsteen performs the title song.
Critics and fans rejoice alike. Daniel Craig writes me a letter in which he refers to me as “The Definitive James Bond.” The spot where the henchman grabs me on the shoulder doesn’t end up bruising.
I am James Bond.