The following is the transcript of an unsolicited email sent to a coworker during an overnight shift. Some edits have been made from the original format:
Hello (name retracted),
As you have gathered by now, I am the smartest person you have ever met. That means a few things. First, it means I don't have to shave because shaving is for suckers. Second, it means that every idea I have might as well be a golden egg that has been wrapped in bacon and shit by a drunken pirate goose. Third, it means that I feel compelled to share my bacon wrapped shit nuggets with the world. That’s where you come in.
In the course of my studies I have learned that consumers are often too stupid to know what they want. This problem is confounded by the fact that certain niche markets are not catered to because their needs are not fully understood. This is a shame, because the return in some niche markets is extremely high despite their relatively smaller sizes. If you couple the profitability of catering to a niche market containing a high hit rate with the increased appeal of a well-crafted need-meeting product that requires high consumer involvement because of either relatively high cost or limited frequency of purchase, you can find yourself a gold mine.
The long and the short of it is that I would like for us to collaborate on a highly specialized greeting card market. To be specific, I'd like to design a line of drug store greeting cards aimed at people who want their suicide notes to have pizazz. To be even more specific, I'd like to delve into the "surprise suicide note" and "humorous suicide note" markets.
Picture it. You're at the drug store picking up your anti-depressants, cheap wine or malt liquor (that you plan on drinking alone in a dark room) and some stationary for your suicide note. But, alas, none of the stationary really pops out at you and says "this is the penultimate writing surface that I want to use to tell people I'm sick of their shit and living in this bullshit world".
Even more disheartened than you were when you walked into the store, you decide that you're just going to go to the greeting card section to pick up some "thinking of you" cards that you buy and mail to yourself from fake monikers just so you have something to look forward to and can pretend that someone out there cares whether you live or die.
But what’s this? Next to the "don't kill yourself" cards is a new little section of well-drawn cards with envelopes featuring the morbid color schemes that your eye just gravitates toward. When did CVS add these "funny suicide note" and "surprise, it’s your fault suicide note" sections to their otherwise mundane greeting card selection?
Your heart leaps as you open the first card and you realize that someone has graphically and verbally taken your thoughts and put them in a format that is better than your worthless existence could ever have mustered. I mean, this card is the prototype of suicide correspondence that you envisioned when you first started thinking about how you were going to end it. In your hand is exactly what you would want for your last communication from the grave to be like!
You're so excited that someone thought to cater to your needs that you almost think someone cares enough about your plight to not want to kill yourself...almost. As you check out you're almost too distracted to notice that the cashier is at first confused by your purchase selection, as it consists of lighter fluid, eight bottles of extra strength over the counter pain relievers, a length of high tensile triple braided rope, the raunchiest porn magazine in the store, the latest issue of Knot Tier's Magazine, two forties of Steel Reserve, a handle of diluted vodka and a microwave burrito.
After scanning the rest of your order the cashier finally gets to your card purchase and gives you a knowing look after visually rescanning the rest of your order. Their demeanor softens as they ask if you have a CVS card because you can save $3.13. You mumble "I don't care" as you just hand them your wallet. The cashier takes out the correct amount of cash and even takes some change out of the "give a penny, take a penny" tray, explaining that it'll keep “you” from having to deal with too much change “down the road”
. Distracted and anxious to get out of public, you hastily turn to leave while attempting to put your wallet in your pocket. You fumble your wallet and drop it. You gaze at the wallet on the ground for far too long as if it was miles away and then look up and meet eyes with the person that has been standing behind you in line. Your facial expression tells that person that when you looked up you were almost surprised to find that you're still in public and there's people watching you. You give a soft grunt as you quickly shuffle out of the store without picking up your wallet.
When you get back to your car, you crack open one of those forties for the drive home. As you drive, you fight the urge to empty the lighter fluid on yourself and the seat next to you. You try not to think about what would happen if you followed up the lighter fluid by putting the windows up and pouring the rest of the forty on the window/lock switch to short them out. You pretend you wouldn't like to then light a cigarette and throw the lighter on the seat next to you as you drive into the first floor of a house as fast as you can get your car going before the pain gets too intense.
You put all those ideas out of your mind. Why? Because you have a Nick & (name retracted) Sui-card that you need to prepare when you get home. You know that after you get home and get that final piece of personalizable art touched up and sealed, that you'll be able to choke yourself like never before while jacking off to that outrageous porn magazine you just bought. You know that you'll read up on the best slip-knot techniques for maximum strength and torque while downing your second tall glass of a cocktail composed of Steel Reserve, diluted drug store vodka and enough crushed up Tylenol PM to make the cocktail as viscous as the 5w-30 motor oil you just poured onto the chair next to you. You almost slip as you get up on the chair and slide that fresh smelling rope on. Your upper lip smirks just a little bit as you think of what your last round house kick must look like as it kicks that chair out from beneath you with the force of 1.5 Chuck Norrises.
Before you let your mind drift off, you think to yourself that you’re now certain that it was a good idea just to “hang out” tonight. Tucked into the porn mag on a nearby table, almost as a bookmark taking the next reader to a picture of two women doing unspeakable things with some plastic, some rubber, and a basket of fresh fruit, is an ornate red and black envelope. Inside this envelope is a brilliantly drawn card. On the front cover of the card is a calming scenic landscape with the words "I just wanted you to know..." written in a brilliantly flowing font.
On the inside of the card, the reader finds the words "You are the wind beneath my wings". These words take on new meaning as the reader begins to interpret the accompanying picture of a gust of wind taking a bird into the engine of a jet plane. On the other side of the card there is ample room for the author to personalize the card for the intended reader. The card ends with the text "This is your fault," followed by enough room for a sign off.
We stand to make a lot of money here, (name retracted). I hope you're as excited as I am. As the best graphic designer I know (myself not included), I'm coming to you first with this. I'll keep thinking over some new designs and themes so we can get a well-rounded line, but I'll be expecting some rough drafts of this initial card in my inbox by the end of the day.
When this is all said and done, we'll have enough money to floss other people's children's first teeth with shit flavored dental floss.
Respectfully yours,
DJ Happenstance
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