Counting Palettes

The Crate and Palette, a shipping store, first opened their doors for business, there was one question they had never thought to ask. When receiving a shipment of palettes, does one count the palette the palettes come on? It seemed logical that one would. After all, why add an extra palette and the extra shipping weight just to create a flat surface to stack goods on? After all, the product itself was a flat surface for stacking and shipping goods. Naturally they took it on good faith that when nine palettes arrived stacked on a palette that their order of ten palettes had been fulfilled. A quick call to their supplier confirmed the practice. Then other products started to come in. The crates came on their own palette, as did the boxes and bubble wrap, and as far as they could tell, those palettes didn't need to be purchased or even requested. Further, though they ordered ten palettes, only the top nine were new. Having been used for shipping, the bottom palette was often scuffed and sometimes broken, and thus couldn't be sold as a new palette with the rest of them. It was obvious their distributor had been ripping them off. However, after some number crunching, management at The Crate and Palette decided to let it go, for though they were getting cheated out of a new palette, gently used ones sold for only ten percent less, and with the free palettes that came with the crates and boxes and bubble wrap, they turned a higher profit than they might if they confronted their supplier and risked having him ship their goods using some other medium of transportation.

- Originally mailed to M. Bennett from Plano, Texas

Inflation

When the bottom of the economy finally fell out, inflation kicked in with a vengeance. Being an intelligent guy, Hans Mauer immediately took all the cash he could find and went to a store, knowing that goods would always be worth something, whereas his money might not. By the time he arrived, the price of candy had already almost doubled, so he bought the whole box. Candy was a luxury good, after all, so those lucky few who had wealth would pay a hefty sum for it later. When he arrived home, the same candy was selling for five dollars. A pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups came to more than fifteen by lunch, and by the end of the week, inflation has spiraled so wildly out of control he could have bought a brand new car with the money he made, presuming of course that the price of automobiles had not also skyrocketed. But nothing lasts forever, and Hans knew this. When it looked like the economy could take no more, when the neighboring nations would have no choice but to intervene, he sold every scrap of candy he had. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars, and exactly as predicted, the government stepped in with a new gold standard currency. The old money was virtually worthless. As a sort of kindness, the treasury allowed for the old currency to be traded in for pennies of the new stuff, but Hans didn't take the deal. Instead, he waited for all the old cash to die away, to be collected and burned. Then, two years later when he had one of the only supplies of the old dollar bills, he sold his hoard off to museums and collectors one bill it at time, on average getting twice the printed dollar value. In the end, his box of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups netted him a cool million goldbacks. He retired early, all over a little candy and a lot of patience.

- Originally mailed to J. Ransom Raper in Batesville, Arkansas.

Alzheimer's Trucker

 

Wendy Phillips had been with United Shipping for thirty seven years by the time she developed Alzheimer's disease. The diagnosis devastated the small company. They couldn't let her go. She was one of the first five employees. She had an amazing driving record. She'd run the same route for fifteen years. Her customers knew her, loved her, trusted her. She was practically family. Even so, these days she would often forget where she was going and all the perishable goods in the trailer ran a very real risk of spoiling. What could they do?

But where there is adversity coupled with people who love and support one another, there is hope. Her friends, co-workers, and clients set tracked her route down to her parking space. Then, over the course of a week, they vandalized road signs across the tri-state area. Words, phrases, sentences, all spray painted along her route so that should she have an episode, she could still make her way to where she needed to be.

“Exit here, Wendy.”

“This is the path we take.”

“Park here and honk four times.”

When she arrived at her stops, she didn't always know what was going on, but those around her did, and they always made sure she had warm food, good company, and a place to stay until she became lucid again.

- Originally mailed to C. Procenko from Toronto, Ontario in Canada.

Invisible Exits

Many people carried a very ill opinion of the owners of the Cornerstreet Cafe. They thought they were manipulative imprisoners of their clientèle. People who attended their establishment often felt trapped, like they were being held in the restaurant against their will. They would complain about being barred from the exits by iron fences or bathroom signs on a blank wall.

The owner and former magician Mister Santos Lizanne did this deliberately, but not the way people imagine. People said he put signs up where there was nothing, or made certain parts of his cafe impossible to reach. This was utterly false. However, through clever use of paint and lighting and forced perspective, he made the way appear blocked. He felt too many people in the world lacked faith in humanity and trust in each other. They had grown cold and distant and clung to the words taught at childhood, “stranger danger.” So he used optical illusions to show them that they could trust people. That if the sign said there was a way out, you could believe that there was a way out, even if you could not see it.

Mister Lizanne was a man of his word, but you just had to trust him on it.

- Originally mailed to D. Murphey from Ocean Springs, MS

Corona Piñatas

“Every adult deep down wants to be a kid again,” Marilyn Stephens would always say. This philosophy ultimately led her to open her own party planners, Inner Child Party Services. They had many of the usual children's affairs, bouncy houses, slip-n-slides, and the like, but with more alcohol. The ice cream was Bailey's and Kahlua flavored, and the cake was Guinness chocolate. That which didn't translate directly, she would often retheme. Instead of clowns and Spider-Man, entertainers would show up dressed as Donald Draper or Leelo Dallas. Pin the Tail on the Donkey, for the sake of decency, involved sticking other body parts on other things. Musical chairs was likewise made more interesting and adult themed. For the most part, her party planning business was a huge success, though she almost lost it all when she first introduced piñatas. For the longest time, she puzzled over what to stuff them with, before settling on an amusing recursion. What better thing to stuff a Corona piñata with than bottles of Corona? Fortunately, the alcohol instantly disinfected the many wounds from all the broken glass.

- Originally mailed to C. Nowell in Newport News, Virginia