Ah Mister Pape, I do hope this note for Walmartmas 2066 has found you well. Do you remember when Genuine was but a wee corporate filing, those fifty-five years ago? When we filled plastic babes with vodka, and Ali was made of flesh and blood rather than titanium, before the company got bought out by Twitterbook Global? Those were the good old days. Now all we have to look forward to is more kids graduating with 700 million dollar social media doctorates, floating Segways powered by room temperature superconductors, and foreclosures on the Moon. Oh well, at least you sold all that Google stock in the ’14s; who knew Apple YahAOL!Soft would make a comeback? Merry Christmas.

In addition to being incredibly arrogant world-destroying lunatics, the members of this deplorable human race—I am forced to admit—are naturally cunning animals, perhaps the only ones on Earth capable of fabricating their own identities on the fly. And I don’t mean in the sort of way Alison Sanzone uses alien phermones to hide her true form from human males before she devours them.

I mean in the sort of way human beings openly acknowledge who is cunning and therefore powerful in many familiar social settings. Fear of this thing to be wielded by the cunning in the face of the insipid masses is one of the many reasons why Plato cast out the poets from his Republic. There is the delivery of the threat by the comedian and then the impact of the threat on the tribe. What is the tribe to do when faced with a superior threat, the exactness of which exceeds the tribe’s cunning? The natural response, if the comedian is sufficiently cunning: laughter.

Oh what it is to laugh, Mister Andrew Rohman, to roil from the guts and contort, to feel the relief of our stupidity! Never have we heard from human lips a more sincere expression of terror and defeat in submission to masters more insidious than us! “Hear the tolling of the bells - Iron bells!” as Poe would say. 

But laughter is not sincerity in itself, per se. 

Not honesty in action, no.

Not surprisingly, the only place I have ever encountered a name like “Arlin” is in Lord of the Rings, the greatest fantasy film ever made. In my day, kids took classes for literary works like Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. We did scholarly things like write papers entitled “Third Order Declensions in Elvish and Klingon” and “The Sacred Feminine in Captain Kirk Fanfiction.” I even had a class in comic books. Now that, sir, is an education. I mean, look at me now! I write copy for condiment companies! But did you know kids these days get to take classes in Harry Potter and Twilight? We have to draw a line somewhere, and if we don’t draw it at supernatural romance, I don’t know where we will.

Merry Christmas.

The Inquiry:

I am not sure what I want, but this should help you to make a suggestions and give me a price. Every thing is at Godaddy I would like to have links to YouTube, Facebook, PayPal, and tracing, testimonials, services, legal, web traffic statistics, and so on, I need to be advise about it. I am thinking of selling African arts and crafts witch is made by the locals in the streets, this web side will have hundreds of small stuff on it. Than for the more expensive art I would like to have a tracking option where thru a serial number one would be able to follow the path of a art piece. With YouTube  I want to have a link for some of the art work. PayPal, and what you would propose for on line payments. Facebook to help with marketing and sales. And what ells you would think could help. The web sides I want you to look at is one I found on the internet and I think is something close to what could work for me. This should give you a idee of what I am looking for and I am open to all suggestions.

Translation:

There’s been a dip in profits coming out of my overseas email spam syndicate due to the American recession. I’m looking to start scamming my own neighbors, could you please build me a website for 10,000,000,000 GBP which I will wire to you via a secure Western Union account? 

I have always found audiovisual people to be especially intriguing. There are many things I can’t do, like surfboarding, or driving a really big truck, or piloting a mastodon, or riding a bicycle, but more than any of these activities that shine with my incompetence, making neat videos and playing instruments that emit melodic sounds are paramount. I sometimes wonder, what body part is worth sacrificing in exchange for some innate ability? That is, would you sacrifice a limb for superb athletic ability? Or perhaps a pinkie for instant mastery of backgammon? When I am sleeping in the server room for most of the day to avoid Ali, these are the things I dream about. What are your dreams and aspirations Mister Justin?

Miss Nicole, I know absolutely nothing about you, apart from having gleaned that you came from Digitas, and that you are a designer. When I first learned you were hired when Megan abandoned us forever to Australia, this frustrated me, because Chris and John were adding employees faster than I could write these Christmas letters. Nevertheless, let me tell you a story about when I was ten years old. I knew this kid in Florida who lived down the street. He collected frogs in a bucket and he would show them to me. (He was my only friend at the time.) One day, he found a slug on the sidewalk and put a wooden board on top of it, out of boredom. I asked, “What are you doing placing that wooden board on that slug, frog friend? And he replied, “Science.” Then he hopped on the board, and we found out what slugs are made of. The end.

The Inquiry:

Looking to design a web site with data base that can sorted in multiple ways for a real estate company. The data base would be of apartments, Condo, and homes for rent or sales including pictures and or movies of the homes.  I should be easy to do update.

Translation:

I have life-threateningly severe attention deficit disorder and am incapable of proofreading anything I write. This is why I’m in real estate. Honestly, I got bored of filling out shady Craigslist ads for foreclosed homes today, so I thought I’d email you in the off chance that you’re cheaper than offshore labor.

<3

This Christmas, Ministress, I would like to ruminate on my memories of yesteryear, when you were but a wee tentacled horror skittering about the villager-ridden countryside like a zombie child in a people-flavored candy store. Back then, the prophecies of your coming to this accursed planet were still rumors, muttered fearfully by gibbering cabals of IBM cultists. Ascots were in vogue, the typewriter was the next iPad, and people drank Tab. It was a golden era for humanity that you would soon ruin with things like Google spreadsheets and cheap on-demand professional services automation from Projector PSA. On this Christmas holiday, I for one am thankful that I can look forward to unutterable torment every Tuesday morning, during your Appeasement Ceremonies, when fellow cultists insert replacement RFID chips into my cranium. God bless America for its unholy privileges, and God bless us, every miserable one.

Loyalty, Reverend Andrew Rohman, loyalty. The “L” word. I like to imagine you are a loyal sort of person, my dear sir, who has loved others (not with sincerity, of course, as we have established the unicornity of such behavior), and who has, with patient fealty, shouldered the indignities of his cohorts in exchange for their friendship. 

FOOL!

Loyalty is a disease! A DEFECT! It is Nature’s way to evolution that the loyal and faithful are stamped out for their obsequiousness—Julius Caesar by fierce stabbing and Emperor Palpatine by vertigo! Not convinced? Let us enumerate the many strains of affliction: loyalty to an idea, loyalty to family, loyalty to the State, and loyalty to a woman. Oh what is a man who nurtures for himself a faithfulness to these ideals, building ever upward out of the plaster of brotherhood a pedestal of goodwill? DEAD. Case in point: The Tragedy of Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.

My little neon friend, I hope you enjoy your vintage ‘80s Lisa Frank lunch box, which I stole from an eleven year old girl yesterday afternoon at the YMCA. I learned of its provenance as the girl beat me repeatedly with her Hannah Montana umbrella and screamed, “Give me back my vintage 1980s Lisa Frank lunch box, you asshole!” but thankfully I narrowly escaped her brutal onslaught and sobering language. Cat [REDACTED], you seem like a lovely person and I have enjoyed the variously drunken moments we have spent conversing together. Here is to hoping that before the apocalypse of 2012, we will have many exciting adventures together.

The Inquiry:

I’m a Yale student working on an advertising start-up that allows advertisers to focus unique attention on their featured products within a social framework. This venture is through the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute with mentor and adviser [REDACTED]. We’re looking for a partner to build the beta product and secure a first round of advertisers. I can provide negotiable compensation with long-term equity and management position. I’m happy to discuss in more detail, but would like you to sign a non-disclosure agreement first.

Translation:

I may be fifteen years old, but I sure know how to name drop and have just enough business school etiquette to screw you over should you be foolish enough to accept “negotiable compensation,” “long-term equity” or a “management position” in my fantasy start-up that I dreamed up while I was coked out in Humanities class yesterday. 

If I could select a single word to describe you, I would select the word glee. Not because I am a fan of musicals (I am), or because I am particularly gleeful (I am not, as you are well aware), but because you are genuinely gleeful. Now how does that work? It is a well known fact that I emit a “negativularity” (a phenomenon well documented by Spacecat Eric), which has the unfortunate side effect of withering plants and making infants weep. Why Miss [REDACTED], the presence of a pleasant optimism, like a warm body gliding over the surface of an ocean full of great white sharks, gives me strength.

From: Jimbo
Date: Wed 1/4/2012 9:43 AM 
To: All
Subject: Genuine Snuggie

Management,

Can we get Genuine hard working man snuggie for work like this and couch too? What would boost productivity on 5^th floor. Also I think the climate conditions are close to Anchorage, Alaska right now. 

Evil Jimbo 3.0.

—-

From: Mike *Jesus H. Christ* Miles
Date: Wed 1/4/2012 9:46 AM
To: All
Subject: RE: Genuine Snuggie

But Jimbo, this is your climate!

—-

From: Management
Date: Wed 1/4/2012 10:06 AM
To: All
Subject: RE: Genuine Snuggie

Evil Jimbo 3.0,

When you were in the Montana woods I’m sure that the weather was colder than this. Your request for warmth is denied.  

The president of the company, however, has offered to come upstairs and spoon with anyone who wants warmth on the trendy couches.

This is a free perk for your hard work here at Genuine.

Thank you,
Former HR Exec