Austin Attleboro
lived in Seattle where he worked in a bookstore that sold not only books, but
also coffee in all sorts of flavors. The aromas from the many freshly brewed
pots of coffee were almost intoxicating to Austin who was a coffee connoisseur.
Because of his great knowledge of coffees, he was placed at the coffee bar each
day. While he loved the job, especially since he had no qualms about the affordable
price, he did get a little bored with it.
His real
passion in life was his after-hours job. Every evening after sunset, he left
his small apartment to pedal artificial eyeballs to owners of one-eyed cats. He
was pleasantly surprised to learn that there was a great demand for them
because most one-eyed cats needed another eye. One-eyed cat owners seemed
embarrassed by their cat’s problem and were willing to pay exorbitant prices to
rectify the situation.
Austin
worked every neighborhood going door to door with a suitcase crammed with artificial
cat eyeballs. For reasons he had trouble understanding, many doors were slammed
in his face. Occasionally people even called the cops because they mistakenly thought
the eyeballs were real and that he’d harvested them from live cats. They refused
to believe his explanations and professions of innocence. Austin couldn’t
understand it, but he always left before the cops arrived.
Usually,
though, he found folks more than willing to cough up large sums of dough for
these eyeballs and before long he was making so much money that he quit his day
job. The eyeballs came with a full three year warranty package. It was a great
selling point. Of course, the installation did pose a problem. Austin sold a
booklet with instructions for an extra two hundred dollars, but almost no one understood
them because they were written in Mandarin Chinese. The sale of these booklets
was extremely low even though the illustrations were stunning. Most people
opted to take the eyeballs and tape them to their cat’s head because they were
only buying them for show anyway.
One fateful
evening, Austin Attleboro met his doom. He knocked on the wrong door. It was
opened by a large Italian man who had strong ties to the Mafia. When he saw
Austin’s suitcase containing his artificial eyeballs, he went berserk. He was
convinced that Austin was a hit man sent to rub him out for deeds he’d done
against the Mafia boss in Chicago several years earlier. He grabbed Austin’s
display case and managed to pop open the latches. Eyeballs flew all over the
floor and the big man screamed in horror. He thought they were from other
people Austin had been commissioned to kill. He gripped Austin by the neck with
his big ham-like hands and began to squeeze. That was the end of Austin.
There were a
lot of unhappy one-eyed cats and one-eyed cat owners in Seattle after his demise.
As far as I know, no one has ever taken over this position. Maybe this is your
dream job. With so many people out of work, I know someone will, no doubt, fill
this void. There’s a lot of money to be made in this line of work, if you’re
willing to accept the risk.
