Help Wanted – Executioner for part time work.

As/when required. Must be discreet and obedient to judicial orders. Able to carry out assignments without passing personal judgment; impartial to client age, race, sex, nationality, religion, or pleas of clemency. Persons subject to fits of compassion, mercy, or second guessing need not apply.

Can you do it?

60% of you can. 40% of you can’t. Surveys indicate that a majority of adults support capital punishment… under the right circumstances. So if you support it… you should be able to do it.

It’s not too difficult to categorize who should die for high crimes. Child rapist-murderers head the list. So do serial killers like Vancouver’s Willie Pickton who butchered 50 women and fed them to his pigs.

Then there’s the drug gang-bangers and, of course, the mass-weapon terrorists. Most people will do-in some scumbag who knocks off his wife for insurance and takes up with a slut. And screw the cop-killer, too.

But what about the drunk driver who runs down someone for the third time? Or the druggie who gets excessive in the corner-store holdup? Or the wife who flips and knifes her husband and his secret gay lover?

Is there merit to ‘the punishment must fit the crime’? What about ‘an-eye-for-an-eye’? Where do you draw the line on who sits on Old Sparky and who sits on ice? What happens if the condemned turns out to be innocent? Can you remotely take the chance? Does it deter others? Is it downright cruel and unusual – an act no civilized society can condone – regardless of the severity of the crime?

Well, hang-on and read the job description. These aren’t your concerns, so park it and ask the missing question.

How am I supposed to do it?

Let’s take a look at your options.

These days, your best instrument is lethal injection. You’ll operate in a sanitary environment easing your patient with a sedative before clinically administering an intravenous flow of phenobarbital to put them to sleep. It’s neat, tidy, and you’ll have little clean-up once you’re done.

Depending on where you’re required, you might still activate an electric chair. Watch The Green Mile first so you won’t be too surprised when something smokes and cooks off.

The gas chamber is still elective and a firing squad – fast. Hanging is a swingin’ method, tried & true, but has some nasty side effects.

Years ago, you’d have a whack of acceptable devices. Crushing by elephants was handy as was using horses to tear limbs apart. Drawing and quartering worked fine, as did burning at the stake, boiling and burying alive, flaying, garroting, stoning, smothering, keelhauling, and impaling. Remember Vlad? Sick sonofabitch he was.

Let’s not forget the guillotine – messy but meaningful. Ling Chi, or ‘Death By 1000 Cuts’, took a while. Google ‘Cave of Roses’. That’ll creep the bejeezus outa you. Starving and dehydration were simple. The Pendulum was quite a feature and included the benefit of sheer terror. Consider beheading by double-bladed axe and disemboweling as well.

Leave crucifixion alone. It’s been done and has gained quite a sympathetic following.

There’s been a variety of creative tutors, but there’s one frikin’ guy who was really a master.

He’s Vasili Blokhin, a Major-General in Stalin’s army. He possibly notched-up a hundred thousand. In one month alone Old Vasili personally executed 7,000 Polish soldiers, setting an ambitious quota of 300 per night. To keep up the pace he used a single shot to the base of the neck from a .25 Walther pistol, being handed fresh magazines by an eager apprentice. Vasili eventually drank himself to death. Some say it was suicide by vodka. Don’t matter; he made it to the Guinness Book of Records.

So… are you up for the job?

Got what it takes?

Decide soon. All applications must be in by midnight.