Mr. Peter J. Gaskins:

It has come to our attention that you require direction. We know what you’re thinking. Is this not the Information Age? Am I not already saturated with information? It is and you are. You do not need to be told what to do, where to go, or how to behave. You know your needs, believe your beliefs. Your head is stuffed like a grape leaf. But a things-to-do list hastily scrawled on the back of the envelope won’t cut it anymore, Peter. You need, in a word, help. Help is on the way.

New Millennial Signage

The human experience in the new millennium comprises the inharmonious duality of Work Life and Home Life. You are a shuttlecock violently batted from one field of play to the next. This ride, research tells us, is more enjoyable when modulated. So why not replace your clock radio with one of our MindMemo Sensory Stimulators?

Instead of waking up to the chatter of radio personalities, you can begin each day with a soothing holographic wake-up reminder. These messages are accompanied by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, the fizzing of a cola beverage, the gentle tap-tap-tap of a razor on polished glass. The choice is up to you! With MindMemo waking up is always a pleasure.

Through special arrangement with our programmers, this reminder can be changed or altered especially for you. For instance, to help maintain the primary interpersonal relationship that is key to successful Home Life management, you may request a weekly reminder to Copulate. Mornings are ideal for copulation as the functionaries are already in bed and in a state of relative undress (you: boxer briefs and socks; your wife: nothing at all). We recommend Wednesdays.

On-the-Job Instruction

On your way to work this morning, you were transported past hundreds of signs. Signs for streets you will never drive down. Signs for places you do not wish to visit. You passed billboards advertising inexpensive airfare, overpriced watches, bottled water. Do not think of these signs. They are clumsy and irrelevant, and more importantly, they are not part of the MindMemo network of corporate sponsors. Nor were they designed with you, Peter J. Gaskins, Account Executive Extraordinaire, in mind. They are like noisy crows on a telephone wire, squawking as you pass. Ignore them.

With your MindMemo subscription, you can receive hundreds of subliminal messages at your place of work. Work place signage has been with us since the dawn of time. That’s why MindMemo provides a comprehensive menu of subliminal messages that can be flashed on your computer screen during the course of the day without interrupting your work. Are you worried about upcoming performance evaluations? (You should be.) Select Succor the Honcho. Is competition with Jack Bondurant leaving you stressed? Choose Destroy Your Enemies. If you believe big-picture incentives are more effective, you can opt for philosophical statements, such as Money Is Everything or Bilk, Swindle, Cheat. You can even get basic reminders designed to help you with day-to-day job performance, like Submit Time Sheets In A Timely Manner or There Are Cameras In The Elevators.

Of course, we require permission from your employer to broadcast these messages and do, from time to time, solicit their feedback with respect to the exact wording. We believe in doing everything it takes to enhance the quality of your Work Life.

Quitting Time

We at MindMemo do not wish to undervalue your Home Life experience, but without Work Life, there can be no Home Life, only Homeless Life, and what kind of life is that?

Our research shows that 85% of your Home Life is devoted to eating, sleeping, watching television and expelling waste. The remaining 15% is equivalent to 27 minutes, 15 seconds, and that, Peter, is just too much free time. Think of the wasted productivity. Think of the untapped potential.

Pesky questions of identity and spirituality have plagued humankind for untold millennia. We say enough is enough. Now with the MindMemo Broadcast Filter your television can be transformed into a subliminal self-actualizing machine! Imagine receiving hundreds of Uplifting, Spiritual, Personal-Growth and/or Anti-Psychotic messages while you watch your favorite shows. You’ll never want to turn off the television again!

At the cornerstone of everything we do is the MindMemo Sleep System. Part rest regulator, part subconscious mind academy, the Sleep System helps you achieve a state of perfect restfulness by depressing the body and stimulating the mind. Plus, with the added College of Dreams Attachment our message systems will expose your brain to as much data as it can handle. Simply attach the relatively unobtrusive skullcap and finger sockets and you will be on your way to experiencing the most comprehensive schedule of osmotic self-help information available anywhere. The College of Dreams presents the following catalog, which has been specially tailored to your interests:

* Legal Drugs
* Spirituality & the Tax Code
* You Masturbate Too Much
* How Not To Be Gay
* Happy Thin, Sad Fat
* Be Your Own Divorce Lawyer
* A Christian Guide to Dating


What’s more, soon MindMemo services will be available via satellite radio, digital phone and other handheld devices so you can take Mind Memo with you wherever you go! For a free brochure*, call 1-888-548-MEMO. Our friendly MindMemo customer service representatives are ready to assist you.

* Terms & Conditions: Did you ever stop and think that your aversion to swift decisive action may be part of your problem, Peter? Are you perfect? No, you are not. Do you want to be? Yes, even though you’d never admit it, you do. We know this. We also know the gap between the desire for perfection and the impossibility of its attainment, what we at MindMemo call “fucked-up life syndrome,” causes you great stress. We can help you with that. We offer no guarantees save one: if you don’t call us you will be haunted for the rest of your life, wondering what MindMemo might have been able to do to help or improve your miserable life. Of course, you being a foot-dragger/lag-behinder pretty much cements your loser status. A go-getter/striver like Jack Bondurant would have already called (in fact he contacted us last week), would already be enjoying the thrill of anticipating a life enriched with MindMemo services. But not you. You still have a few more smokable butts in the ashtray to burn, some flat soda to suck down while you survey the squalor of your rented abode and consider your cash-strapped “options.”

You make us laugh, Peter. Frankly, we’re growing tired of the charade, pretending to like you just because you’re part of a targeted demographic, a member of the low-income ranks of the desperate and the vulnerable, perpetually butting up against the ends of things: jobs, relationships, jokes, etc. Here’s a news flash for you, Peter: even if you did call us, which you won’t, you probably couldn’t afford our services. Not that you’d realize it, not with that mix of hubris and reckless spending that you are wont to characterize as “plucky” but makes you desirable only to debt collection agencies. It’s that same foolish determination that led you to pursue those useless liberal arts degrees even though your poor parents tried to warn you that you were making a huge mistake. Now look at you. Let’s say you did call, for argument’s sake, and signed up for MindMemo self-actualizing services, there would be a honeymoon period. We’d send you the equipment and you’d spend a few minutes unpacking it; but after looking at the lengthy instruction manual you’d decide that a MindMemo enhanced life could wait, so under the coffee table the box would go and under the coffee table it would stay. First there would be late payments, then bounced checks, and, finally, a declined credit card. Frankly we don’t need your kind of trouble. The hell with you, Peter. MindMemo does not want an account executive who keeps getting passed over for a senior position while his wife dreams of copulating with Jack Bondurant, who most certainly does not wear his socks in the sack. Is this too harsh?

Perhaps. Maybe there is a side to you—an enlightened, unexplored side—that yearns for self-improvement. If there is such a side, we are sorry. There is always the outside chance you could, in a fit of unbridled desire for a better life, overmatch the listlessness and ennui that has characterized your wasted time on earth thus far and earmarked you as a drain on our great society’s social services. Come to think of it, making the call would be quite a victory, an accomplishment in and of itself, and who are we to call it puny and insignificant? Not us. At MindMemo, there are no small victories, just as there are no small challenges. Maybe we were wrong about you, Peter. Maybe you should call us after all.