What Could Have Been

I thought it would be funny.

I spent a few hours doing the necessary research, finding all the correct names, places and faces for the gag. Got everything I needed together into a folder on my computer and started writing. As usual, I was giggling as I wrote, ignoring the ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’ sounds coming from the nice men in white coats as they observed me through the one way mirror on the wall.

I couldn’t actually see them, but I knew they were there just the same.

A little after noon today, as I was getting ready to entertain the white-coats by screaming at my left eyelid to stop blinking out of sync with my right, I happened to click over to CNN and read the news.

The suspected snipers are in custody. Damn.

Well, not damn, because it’s actually a good thing that they caught them. But damn for me because by catching these idiots they have inadvertently destroyed today’s post. You see, I was going to write a whole ‘Dear Police Chief Charles Moose’ letter explaining who the snipers were and why they were doing it. I had formed a conspiracy theory involving George T. Shaheen and Julie Wainwright, the CEOs of Webvan and Pets.com respectively, and one very angry sock puppet. They were on a mission of righteous redemption, needing to prove once and for all that their failed dot coms would work if people were given the right incentive to stay home and have their food and pet supplies delivered to them.

No, no. Think about it.

Who had white vans to spare? Who would want people to stay home and have their food delivered? Who’s got nothing but time? Who’s angry at the world in general?

Sock puppets and CEOs, that’s who.

I still think it would have been funny, but that’s all over now. They caught the real people, so my pathetic attempt at humor will have to be put into the attic and mothballed for now. One day though, when it’s aged to perfection like a fine wine, my Sock Puppet Sniper story will resurface to take the humor Blogs, and thus the world, by storm.

Look out George and Julie, I’m watching you. Like a hawk.