|
|
|
| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
|
|
|
December 2006 / January 2007 Contest Results |
Sweet
Tart Junkie
By Tom Hull, Idaho
If you want to make a lot of money in business, you need to corner the
market on a product. Companies from Standard Oil to the Hunt brothers
have tried this approach in the past, with regrettable results. The same
business tragedy occurred when Kim Gardner tried to corner the market on
Sweet Tarts.
Sweet Tarts arrived in our town in the early Sixties, when I was in
junior high school. My friends and I gathered every morning before
school at Tandy’s Market. None of us had much money, but when we found
ourselves with a few extra coins, we’d make a visit to the store’s candy
counter.
One day my buddy, Mac, came out of the store with a little pack of Sweet
Tarts. We’d never seen them before, but we gave them a try and decided
this was the best candy ever produced.
Within a week Sweet Tarts were all the rage at school. Kids searched for
them like junkies looking for a hit of heroin. A pack cost ten cents in
the local markets, but on the playground you could get a dime for a
couple of tabs. One kid tried to trade his new Schwinn bike for three
dime bags. Deals were struck on the playground during recess, and small
packages of the product changed hands in the lunchroom. Fortunes were
made and lost.
My friend Kim wasn’t much to look at. He was born with a big head that
made him look like the bald scientist on the Muppet Show. But he had the
mind of a true entrepreneur. Kim recognized a new business opportunity
and made his move. One Saturday he rode his bike to all three stores in
the area and bought up their entire supply of Sweet Tarts. By Monday
there wasn’t a single Tart in the whole area that Kim didn’t control.
Proving the theory that scarcity leads to higher prices, the cost of
Sweet Tarts at school went through the roof. If you needed a Sweet Tart,
Kim was the man to see. If you didn’t want to pay his outrageous price,
well, you could just go suck on a Tootsie Roll.
If you watch movies about mobsters selling drugs, you may notice that
they always have plenty of big goons standing around supplying a little
muscle to the operation. Kim forgot this vital business tool, and it led
to his downfall. Big Dave, irritable from being tartless for two days,
cornered Kim in the locker room. Big Dave possessed a brain and temperament
ill-suited to sophisticated economic theory, but he had a keen
understanding of market forces. He hoisted Kim onto the monkey bars by
his jock strap and instituted a hostile takeover.
Kim lost his empire, but Big Dave fared no better, as his own appetite for
his product quickly ate into his profits. He almost single-handedly
liquidated his entire inventory in a fit of rampant consumerism.
The market soon returned to some level of sanity when Tandy’s Market
ordered more Sweet Tarts, and we were eventually on to other fads. After
high school, Kim became an expert in leveraged buyouts, and Big Dave went to prison.
He’s out now, and available for hire if you need a
little muscle to corner a market.
.
|
