Salesman

It occurs to me that selling things is difficult. A friend was offered the chance to sell tickets for something and upon further mulling, I realized you could probably rake in lots of skrill (see: Cheese, Cream).

However, fat skrill-wad-making is usually contingent upon ones ability to actually sell what they are selling efficiently. And I would just suck at that.
Let me break it down for you.

Some people have the gift of Sell. They can completely not care about the ability, the quality, the point of their product and still make it sound like a magic ice cream cone tree.

Me...not so much.
If I know this seed will not an ice cream cone tree make, I can't sell it. Here's an impression.

Ding Dong
Kindly Citizen: Oh, good morning. Can I help you?

Me: Good morning! Let me ask you a question that I can probably guess the answer to...Are you interested in seeds?

KC: What?

Me: Seeds! And ice cream, too? Wait, I shouldn't tell you that part yet. Let's start over.
brief moment of silence as i compose myself mentally
Good morning! I have seeds for you!

DOOR CLOSING.

That's just a worst-case scenario for something that i'm not sold on myself. However, if I do believe in the product, well you better believe the gift of Sell is suddenly alive in me as some enzymes after I drink a little watermelon lemonade (trademark: King of Drinks).

Here are a few things I think I could sell the crap out of and make you and your company a fat wad of skrill.

1). John Williams.
And I'm not talking about the spanish guitar stylings of some dude with extra long strummin' nails. I'm talking about the man who has provided sound to color our imaginations since the 1960s, and specifically who gave Steven Spielberg that extra goodness that has made him an icon.




Sells itself.



2). Pumpkin lattes.
Not only do they scream deliciousness of fall. They also are hot as lava and can be used as a weapon against hobos trying to rob you for change (which you don't have anyway, because you just generously tipped the barista).
I love pumpkin lattes (after they're cooled down enough to drink of course. those tongue burns last for a week!) so much, I'm not even going to pick a company here to court me into becoming their spokeswoman. I'm just going to show ALL of them right here and now how they could make millions this season from this drink alone and then may the highest bidder win.

HOW TO THROW AWAY YOUR BILLS

That sounds a little more responsibility-avoidant than I intended; I just mean, once you've paid them and now they're trash...or if you're getting those
“Pre-Qualified – you get a million dollars free of interest if you sign up for this crap credit card and then, as soon as you have the cash and/or stuff you so ignorantly thought would distract you from the true emptiness of existence, we will promptly begin to hound you ruthlessly and transmute the shame you could possibly have learned from, into utter defeat that will probably cause you to self-mutilate” credit cards ads
or
“this is not a coupon, it's a subtle lure for you to come into this junk shop that we abbrv BB&B and strain your eyes until you find something you could kind of possibly need someday if there was a zombie apocalypse and all of the answering machines in the world were broken, so you should buy it because today only you'll get almost $0.40 off...just buy it!" coupons


or cell phone ads, all of which probably have your name, address and social security number on them somewhere, and you just want them out of your foyer. Slash off the floor of your living room. In a neat stack. Slash thrown behind the couch.

So I have a step-by-step solution to rid yourself of this paperwork.

1. Recycle it! Okay, harder than it sounds, because if you're like me, you live in a ridiculous city that doesn't have a regular curbside recycling program and it costs like an extra $300 in civic taxes if you do want to get the special blue bin for your trash pickup, but if you don't have that kind of skrill just lying around (and your dumb city still doesn't recognize the Barter System) and there is a recycling plant, but it's 20 miles away in a scary, wobbly part of town where hobos with patchy facial hair hang around drinking their moonshine!

   So, you know, recycling isn't always the first option, although it SHOULD be. Sorry to SHOULD all over you, but it's true.





2. Throw it away! Okay, again, harder than it sounds for a few reasons.

   a). Aforementioned hobos (if you live in the wobbly parts of town) are probably sorting through your trash regularly and looking for items they can eat/use in some kind of internet pyramid scheme using your good name and (questionable) credit history.

   So how do you avoid this?

   b). in the kinds of dumb cities that don't have regular recycling programs and would get you to this Stage 2b level of a predicament, it is a given that anywhere you go, teenagers, hobos, children, orcs, telemarketers or other minions of evil are looking to steal your sensitive information and use it in online pyramid schemes. So you have to protect your trash pretty much everywhere you might live. Even nice, non-wobbly parts of town.

So, to keep all of us from going through the horror of having our good names dragged through the mud by guys in suits with dollar signs all over them, I have developed a step-by-step guide to safely dispose of unwanted paper documents with your personal informaysh all up on them.

Note: this is only to be used if you absolutely, positively cannot recycle your papers. Don't add to the gyre! Please, think of the children (the non evil ones).

1. Locate documents of Trashfulness:

2. Open and empty contents of regular plastic bag.

   Note: this is to be used only if you cannot recycle the plastic bag, which can be done at any Whole Foods grocery store (and most other grocery stores nowadays).

   
   
   

3. Obtain additional items whose use has expired. Things such as:

• triple-used kleenex

• egg shells

  





• 46 year old 3/4-drank (drinken? I'm never clear on drink's past tense in the genitive) iced coffee with half & half and sugar in the raw and possibly honey that has been in the fridge for 46.8 years and is somehow not a fully sentient being by now as it is basically a creepy crawly bacteria cesspool.

• crumpled receipts (not only good as distracting filler, but also need their own place to hide since possibly sensitive information is reflected therein regarding your proclivity for Jones soda)

• pieces of sock felt (probably some between your toes right now!)

• carrot, lemon peel and spinach “feces” leftover from juicing





• band-aids that won't stick anymore

• used tea leaves (used here means the leaves have been re-brewed maybe 11 times over the past week and if a British person so much as smelled them, they would shrink back in horror and then look at you crying and saying, “Why?” with their hand on their chest)

• incense ash

  





• empty jumbo-size South African wine bottle (this is more just to maliciously taunt hobos)
  

Mix any iteration of the above in with your sensitive documentation – making sure that the ugliest items are poking out of the top of the bag.

4. Dispose!

You can now sleep at night with the confidence of knowing your sensitive junk mail and old bills are safe from being perused due to your odd and disgusting rubbish.

I am so confident in this procedure's effectiveness, that I am giving it to you – Absolutely Free!

If you are not completely satisfied in the next 30 days, you can take me to court and sue me for a Million Dollars and the judge will throw it out of court because that is a ridiculous sum to sue over bad throwing away your garbage instructions. Express contract though it may be, you're asking for too much in compensation and besides, I'll tell you upfront I am basically only good for consulting on One Thing – starting an ice cream delivery service. Check yourself!

MILLION DOLLAR IDEA OF THE WEEK

I actually have a few today. Seriously, we're all gonna get stinking, filthy rich.

1).Meat Shakes.

Sell themselves, right?

2). Ice cream delivery service. It’s like pizza delivery, but instead – it’s ice cream. Ice Cream takeout. I am just blowing my mind with outrageous brilliance right now. Why hasn’t anyone done this? Let me set the scene.

It’s Thursday night. You’ve had a long day, your feet hurt and you just finished your Hamburger Helper while catching up on some work emails. (you workaholic!...but lovely shawl)

You need to relax and your favorite Marx Brother’s comedy just became available on Watch Instantly. Some ice cream would really help you unwind. In your mind you see this

It's tantalizing you like some kind of oasis mirage in a desert (plus, I think Hamburger Helper has hypnogogic properties - you need to start eating real food, OK?). But there’s no way you’re going back out again into the fray…it's insane out there. Everyone sweaty and mean, brazenly grabbing and pushing - ready to death-fight you for Ice cream! Everyone!

Not to mention you’re already so cozy. Plus, you’re single/drunk/your significant other is as cozy as you are and there’s no way you’re getting any ice cream unless someone brings it to you. You’ll even buy. You would spend $10-$400 if someone brought you some ice cream right now.

But wait!
They Will!...TA DA! Money in the bank. And it’s for such a worthy cause. (me eating ice cream is the noblest of not remotely noble causes)

For me, as I'm sure it is for everyone, the ice cream Roller Coaster is quite an episodic wandering for the soul. Because you really want it, and then you don't have any...but you wanted it enough that you get some!! It's just such a cleansing journey - basically like Dante's Inferno but for the modern warrior. I think I can illustrate:

When I experience Ice Cream, I hear and see exactly this

Ice Cream delivery will help bring love and joy to this lonely world. Forever's gonna start tonight.