Overnight Island Security

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

The Plot Thickens, The Origination Of Godzilla

       Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant is in danger of causing another disaster for an already beleaguered nation.  After watching the video of the explosion of the building housing the nuclear reactor this morning, I conferenced with my expert colleage on how this new developement may change our collective reasoning on the situation.  We surmised that the recent happenings in Japan may, in fact, be just the beginning of a series of circumstances leading to even greater disaster than we originally anticipated.  
  
       Given our limited knowledge of the seemingly limitless abyss of the deepest sees, there is no arguing that there are most certainly see creatures that have escaped our curious exploration of the earth's seas.  With this giant gap in our knowledge of unexplored and unfathomably large volumes of water there is an opening for the possibility of equally unfathomably large sea creatures.  The recent record breaking seismic shifting of the earths tectonic plates off the coast of Japan, or the 8.9 earthquake as we call it, may have had an, as of yet, unforeseen consequence of even larger devastation.  I postulate that an extremely large sea creature, likely prehistoric, resembling most closely an american alligator, with the swimming ability of shark, and possessing the curiosity, wit, and sunny disposition of a bottle nosed dolphin, may have been awoken from a slumber, released from an underwater chasm, forced to come to the surface, and/or come on land due rapid current shifts.

         At this point of the story there would minimal danger.  Although carnivorous, this creature would likely only be accustomed to eating giant squid and other large sea creatures, thus, not viewing humans as a food source or a threat.  However, the release of radioactive gases and/or materials could be devastating in this situation.  Should this large sea creature, now landed by the earthquakes force, come into contact with the radiation being emitted it would likely suffer from radiation poisoning similarly to humans.  Not having the good sense of a human to avoid the area of the troubled reactor, it may, in fact, be drawn to the heat that it emanates as the nuclear reactions occur.  I reject the sci-fi idea that exposure to radiation will cause animals to mutate instantly into more evolved creatures of destructive force.  Rather, I would suppose that the giant alligator like creature would go to the heat source and wait to feel better.  If at this time the reactor explodes, the creature would be thrown from the area with great force, but survive because of it's prehistoric armor like exterior.  Now angered, and with a headache and disorientation from the radiation sickness, this animal would likely lash out at all around it, and stumble through cities and buildings leaving a wake of destruction in his path.  
  
       Basically, Japan is in danger of a full scale Godzilla attack if just a few completely reasonable circumstances should unfold.


    

Thousands Feared Missing In Japan?

    As the scope of the devastation in Japan begins to be realized, Yahoo! was nice enough to provide us with the headline "Thousands Feared Missing In Japan".  What does that even mean?  We can't account for thousands of people...they aren't missing, we just don't know where they are.  We're worried  that they could be be missing.  We don't want to start jumping to conclusions in this time of hightened tension.  Maybe there's a Japanese tradition that after a massive natural disaster, a quarter of the country gets to go on vacation via some high tech transportation that we don't know about. It may be best to wait it out and decide if they're missing when when we actually find them.

    The number of passenger trains unaccounted for is now between 4-7.  I know theres a lot going on, but I thought they might be able to narrow down the number of entire passenger trains that disappeared.  I guess this report is better than an unknown number of Japanese islands missing.  Had this happened in a third world country, where the guesstimates of the population of livestock is unquestionably more accurate than the population of people, the confusion would be much more understandable: 

"We  believe there were between 35,000 - 180,000 people living in the capital city based on the 21,000,000 votes cast there in the most recent unanimous election of our supreme leader. However many people were there, they're all gone now.  We did, however, account for 40 of the 90 cows, 13 of the 70 pigs, and 17 of the 48 chickens. 

BREAKING NEWS!  My sources from the next village over have just sent word via smoke signals that 2 of the 5 automobiles in the province have been accounted for.  However, the one that works and the parts car for the one that works are among the three still missing, along with the only sorcerer that can speak to the spirits that make them run.  And... yes, this report has just been corroborated by both carrier pigeon and the shaman's hallucinogenic drug induced reading of the bones he throws into a pile while screaming gibberish.

The army's mobilization has been hindered by a broken ox yoke and the 8 passenger transport cart's inability to keep its wheels moving through the mud.  Relief efforts have been ineffective, as it is now becoming apparent that these particular flood waters are resistant to the rocks being thrown at them and the hand woven stick witches that we have been hanging from the trees to scare them away.  

Thankfully, all hope is not lost at this point.  I've just received word via the emergency broadcast conch shell horn, that the supreme ruler's newest illegitimate child has just been born with six toes.  This is, of course, a sign that the fall harvest will double this year, allowing over half of the population to not die of starvation this winter."