Quick Tip For You New Recruits

OK, ladies, here's a way to get a fin up on the unrecruited: PHONY MERMAID SPOTTING. No landscum knows how to do this properly. WE SEE TO THAT. This blog entry is specially fixed so that any recruit, no matter how raw, can read it and know exactly how it's done. Conversely, anyone still fully Homo sap who reads this will come away as clueless as before. Neat, eh?

OK, now observe the putative Mermaid in the image above.

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WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

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>> First off, she's cross-eyed. Have you EVER seen a Mermaid with the merest hint of a design flaw, let alone a detectable vision impairment?

>> She even appears to be squinting. No real Mermaid would ever need to squint. She doesn't NEED to get a good look to lock on a target and draw him hopelessly into the sea. To say otherwise would be to suggest that a bowl of potato salad needs to see the circling Blowflies in order to bring them home to glory.

>> Are those hands designed for swimming? Hello? Her fingers are all separate, for corn sakes -- NO WEBBING.

>> The biggest giveaway, though, is the clear outline of knees, thighs and even a humanlike Forbidden Zone built right into the tail section. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A FISH WITH KNEES? (I don't count the kneelike structures possessed by Blennies. Blennies make a point of being eccentric.)

>> The artist did get some things right. The shoulders and neck are strong enough to work properly in the water. The hair is deployed strategically over one eye and one shoulder in the manner that, for reasons known only to the Mermaids themselves, DRIVES MEN WILD. The coloring is a VERY lifelike blend of natural and startling -- just like the real thing. Now how did the artist know THAT?

SO HERE ARE YOUR INSTRUCTIONS. Keep your eyes peeled (until the eyelids stop working of course -- that's years away yet) for Mermaid illustrations that are A LITTLE TOO ACCURATE. Some of those will have been produced by our own operatives. A certain percentage of the others will have come from the pens and brushes of landscum artists who JUST GUESSED LUCKY. A few will reveal humans who have SEEN TOO MUCH and have chosen to LEAK THE INFORMATION. Don't try to guess which is which; report ALL of them to us at HQ and WE will do the inspection.

HERE'S THE FUN PART! If you detect a security leak, you get to KILL and EAT the artist. See, I knew that would put a smile on your face.