The Next Great Idea
Volume 1
Fall 1998
You want to know how to make a buck in this world? Maybe once it was by working hard and a little luck, but it’s not that way anymore. No sir, now it’s all about having one simple revolutionary idea that takes the world by storm. I missed out with beanie babies and that little taco bell dog, but I think that I’ve got the next great idea. It’s just burning a hole in my head, and so I’d like to tell you what it is. I’m trusting you on this, so don’t you go snitching to any of my competitors.
Now, you all know about travelling. Everybody has to do it cause people are gonna think you’re ignorant or too poor if you don’t, but really, what’s so great about it? I mean, say you’re flying. You pay all this money so you can get a plane ticket, and then the airline goes on strike, you’ve got to change all your reservations, and two weeks later when you finally get a flight, the plane crashes and your grieving relatives are forced to go to Alberta to retrieve your luggage. It’s a real travesty.
Now let’s say you’re driving – all that wear and tear on the car, and every time you want to go some where, orange barrels and roadblocks are in the way. And with these exorbitant gas prices, damned kids in the backseat screaming, cramped conditions, get carsick, next bathroom 500 miles, it becomes pretty hectic. And that’s right about when you get lost and you and your wife start arguing about whose fault it is. You make some smart comment about women not being able to read maps and then she wants a divorce. Then you’re so stressed out that you don’t even notice that you’re doing 90 in a 35 mile per hour zone. And so the cop who pulls you over takes your license, and your wife gets behind the wheel and not five minutes later, gets into a wreck. So you end up walking down in the road 20 miles in the rain trying to find the nearest towing service, all the while grumbling to yourself about women not being able to drive automobiles. Oh, if you only knew how many times I’ve seen this sad drama unfold!
And in this recession, who’s got the money or time to spend a few weeks in some third world country that’s half-full of terrorists where you can’t even drink the water? Why would anybody go to a place where the people don’t speak English, and then you’ve got to learn some other language just to find the bathroom, which turns out to be some dark back alley, and your left hand is the toilet paper. And then if you happen to stumble up the wrong dark back alley, members of the local crime syndicate steal your passport and cut off your fingers to get your rings. So then you’re stuck hawking ‘hand-made’ arts and crafts (that you couldn’t have made!) to tourists for the rest of your natural life and your kids are taken and sold as slave labor to the local Nike plant. No sir, travelling is just not safe anymore.
But then if you don’t travel, everybody thinks you aren’t cool, you know. They think you’re boring or provincial or maybe that you couldn’t afford to go and take a month off in Costa Rica or something. And you can’t have people thinking stuff like that about you. Hmmm… well ain’t that a dilemma for you!
But like I was saying, I’ve got the solution to this terrible quandary. No longer do you actually need to go on a trip to get the proof of having traveled. You see, I’m opening up a new souvenir store – not a shop selling local souvenirs, like all the traditional ones, but one with souvenirs and trinkets from every exotic location in the world. I’m naming it The Virtual Tourist. We’re set up just like your usual travel agency; we’ve got all the same posters on the wall, the same desks, the same hot receptionists, all that stuff. Only our prices are lower, much lower, because we don’t actually send you on a vacation. No, much better than that, we just tell you all the things you would have seen, give you one of those someone went to _______ and all I got was this stinkin’ T shirts, and an assortment of other trinkets from that place. In case you need the proof, we even give you authentic replicas of the plane ticket stubs (if applicable) that you would have gotten had you made the trip. We’ll even throw in a videotape for an extra $19.95, how can you beat that? They were all taken by professionals, so your friends will be very jealous (Of course if you want your family in the film, you’ll have to do the dubbing yourself).
And just think of all the time that would be saved! Rather than wasting your precious time travelling thousands of miles, entertained only by that beat-up travel connect 4 game, you can churn out that novel you’ve been wanting to finish, paint that image that’s been coming to you in visions during the night, or just lie around on the couch all day watching the soaps. It’s just like doing two things at once!
Oh yes, our grand opening is next week, and I already see all the money coming in! This time it’ll be different than those other times that I was a few steps too slow, or where some low-down double-crosser stole my idea and ripped off millions that rightly should have come to me. This time it’s going to be all mine, and it’s going to be huge - so come on out!