Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Missing Bread

This is a sample poem from my upcoming book

"The Customer is Often Wrong."

Even though the book is a poetic comedy act--I do believe that there is a serious philosophy to be had in the argument against the customer being always right--it has created a culture of abused workers and customers who get rewarded for stamping their feet like children. The good customer gets no recognition either--there is more incentive to be a complainer than to be well-mannered. Even though this book is meant to be funny, there is a serious undertone as well that I hope makes it through.





_________________________________________________________________________
“Can I get a large loaf of white bread?”
“We're out of bread right now.”
“Out of bread?”
“Yes, out of bread.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How can you be out of bread?”
“Well...people just kept asking for it, we kept selling it,
and then we didn't get anymore in.”
“Could I get a small loaf of white bread, then?”
“Ma'am, we are out of all kinds of bread, not just the large loaf.”
“Do you have any whole wheat bread?”
“No Ma'am.”
“How about a small whole wheat?”
“Nope.”
“Any Multi-Grain?”
“No ma'am, we are OUT of bread Have none.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.”
“Maybe a raisin bread?”
“Ma'am, we have no bread, at ALL.”
“Not even a rye bread?”
“No rye, no white, no whole wheat—we have no bread whatsoever in the store at all,
of any kind at all.”
“Could you check the back?”
“There is no back, what you see on these shelves is what we have.
And as you can see, they are empty.”
“Hmmm...” she says finally as if in deep thought.
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“That's alright...I really came here for milk anyway.”
You cross your fingers and pray to God that that you haven't sold out of milk as well.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Crumbling of an Empire

Remember baseball cards?
What the crap happened to them?
Internet…
1999—there was a card shop
hobby shop
comic shop on every corner.
Now? I have to go 5 towns over just to find one.
And it’s small,
Really small,
So small I can’t get by the fat guy in the superman sweater
On my way to the batman rack.
I don’t mind so much, because I know that’s the only
Rack he’s ever going to touch.
But where do you buy cards now?
Target? Walmart?
That’s no fun!
My dad owned a card shop back when
Yu-Gi-Oh Nerds
Starwars Customizable Card kiddos
And Magic The Gathering Gatherers
Would throw away their allowance, birthday, and
Christmas money
In exchange for small pieces of cardboard.
I was never that stupid
I got them for cost!
Cuz my dad owned the store!
I’d buy whole boxes
Sort them out and ran a side business during my lunch hour!
In elementary school I’d trade them for twinkies
By high school I got cold-hard-cash!
I would convince these kids that a 50 cent card was worth
5 dollars! And this was before the internet! What did they know!?
I’d forge autographs to jack up the price
I bought my first car cause of my clever con-artistry.
And now, my empire has crumbled.
No one wants cards anymore
They want facebook credits
And instant downloads
I can’t get those wholesale!
And even if I could, they’d have no resale value whatsoever.
And you can’t forge an autograph on a fart app for your I-phone.
You’ve ruined my personal economy Internet.
You ruined it!
Now I gotta get a job…



A Financial Riddle

 
Originally written for the "Recession Depression and Economic Reflection" event.
___________________________________________________________________________
Alright all you financially savvy folk out there—
Let me pose a question.
What do you call a business model
That takes 4-6 years on average to complete
During these 4-6 years you work roughly 12-18 hours a week on sight,
But at least twice that per week—and usually have to take at least one
Maybe two menial part-time jobs to fund your lifestyle during this time as well.
The investment you either put up, or owe amounts to roughly
25 thousand to 100 thousand dollars depending on a variety of factors.
The only interest that might accrue on the investment being the
interest you have to pay off on the loans, you take to make it.
The physical documentation you get in exchange for all of this
has no resale value whatsoever.
And 9 times out of 10 you end up working a second or third
minimum wage job with no benefits to pay off your


Give up?
Business folk would call that a bad investment,
Society calls it a college degree!
I call it the most expensive piece of toilet paper in the entire world.


Yuppie Mobile


She barreled down the street,
turned into my drive through
and quickly crashed into one of the polls.
I ran out, towards the giant
12 foot long, 7 foot wide yuppie mobile to ask
"Are you OK?"
The middle-aged woman with her badly died
flock of seagulls haircut turns to me,
stares at me,
and says,
"Why is your drive-through so narrow?!"
I see the family portrait on the back windshield,
and am happy that none
of her 5 kids
were in the car.