GOOD NEWS

It appears that the bottle of Jhirmack shampoo (see previous entry) I threatened to drink in my last entry will not be needed after all. A full two thirds of the people I polled reported increased levels of brand awareness. I figured that oversaturation at this point couldn't possibly be a bad thing, so I give you:

Vikram and Ponie, 23 and 24 years old, both 5'11" in their sport socks, rarely reflected on the good fortune life had given them. Young men with vast prospects and a shining future before them, had thrown themselves enthusiastically into their MBA programs, and if they lacked a little in imagination, they did not lack enthusiasm and a willingness to take mail-order marketing seriously.

Summertime, however, found Vikram and Ponie bored and dispirited, drifting through the warm days, borne aloft on motes of lite beer, homegrown that Ponie bought off his cousin, and porn. So they put their MBA skills to use and opened up an black market arms dealership fronted by an unlicensed pre-school daycare.

I don't need to tell you how hilarious it was to watch those two suburban wannabe arms dealers as they fed their little charges, changed diapers and did crafts. The kids turned out to be precocious whippersnappers who more than once delivered stinging lines of comeuppance to Vikram and Ponie as they tried to muddle their way through Crafts Hour. Suffice it to say that those two wore sour scowls and dirty Dockers at the end of the day.

Vikram and Ponie were perplexed. They had just bought a shipment of arms from the mob. They had purchased the Smith & Wesson .50 caliber Model 500, probably the only handgun capable of taking down a charging wild animal - it even comes in an attractive hunting model! They had also purchased many other fine Smith & Wesson firearms, from the classic Airlite™ .357 Magnum to the beautiful 10mm revolver with hogue rubber grip. They even had a full line of S & W firearm accessories made with the same level of craftsmanship that their firearms were known for. After all, it was an American tradition since 1852. But tradition stirs no hearts if minds have not been alerted to the presence of the traditional thing, which was precisely the predicament that Vikram and Ponie: they did know how to target their customrers.

The sword for their Gordian knot arrived dressed up in the form of Alice, a spunky six year old who had been held back from school on account of some developmental difficulties. Alice's difficulties didn't stop her from occasionally uttering surprisingly precocious words of advice now and again and ending a brewing conflict between Vikram and Ponie over Angela, Vikram's girlfriend who had been sleeping with Ponie and one of the daycare kid's dads. It also didn't stop her from somehow getting into the storage room in the basement and shooting herself with Vikram's prized possession, a Pancor Jackhammer with original proprietary ammo clip.

Alice's image was all that Vikram and Ponie needed to convince their suppliers and their customers that they meant business. They used techniques of viral marketing, blitzing bloggers and newsgroups with photos of Alice. Orders came flooding in, and Vikram and Ponie became sufficiently well-off that they could drop out of their MBA program and pursue of life of leisure involving lite beer, better pot, and porn. Eventually they retired from the gun business. Vikram produced hip-hop records for a label in Seattle. Ponie travelled to Mexico and made documentaries about the effects of globalization.

parode - exode