Wednesday, July 26, 2006

K-k-k-keyboard!

A few days ago I heard about these two sisters that had been mailing an uncooked hotdog back and forth for a few years. Big deal. My friend and I have been prankish-ly passing a beef-flavored, Xmas-themed beef stick around and it’s way bigger than some little wiener. But since the ladies had been doing this for 49 years longer then we had before one of them died I figured I needed to step things up.

Unfortunately, the beef stick is not in my possession. Its last delivery was in a giant block of ice that appeared on my friend’s doorstep one cold February morning. It didn’t thaw completely until May. And even though it was hermitically sealed it still stank to high heaven and was shriveled. Ever since, I’ve been waiting for it reappear into my life. Rumor has it he attempted to rig a 5k and a raffle so I would win it as a prize but he was unsuccessful in swaying the judges toward his nefarious schemes.

But that was many months ago and I fear that he may have forgotten about the Stick. I feel I needed to kick start this again, but I needed something new in the prank war.

Presenting the PIAB Chia Keyboard Project

(Now, before I go on any further, I must preface this post by saying that what follows is not an original Pygmalion idea, say, like the Wedding Cake Viking Funeral. It’s been in my head for a few months after seeing it somewhere, maybe BoingBoing. This is just my attempt.)

The first step in my little scheme was securing a black Dell computer keyboard soon destined for the garbage. Fortunately, I have a high school friend in an unnamed IT department who is good at not asking too many questions. He just quietly pointed to a back closet and when I tried to explain myself he just shook his head and pointed to the other door: Exit.

With my keyboard in hand I honestly thought all the hard work was done. But, my friends, you have not tried to but Chia Pet seeds in the non-holiday/movie tie-in season. There were nowhere to be found in the major DC area. My first stop was Target but all I got were blank stares and silent, uncomprehending mouthings of the word “Chia” by employees who, let’s say, won’t be voting for Tom Tancredo. When I was finally directed to someone who understood what I was after, I got the store wide system call of “Do we still carry gee-yahs?” and the response “Naw, not no more.” (The triple negative, I believe, made it accurate.)

Most drug store chains in the area said the used to carry them but not since Christmas. I found one at a Lowe’s but the “pet” clearly sounded broken inside the box and I wasn’t going to pay $16 for just the seeds. (Even if it was in the shape of the zebra from some movie)

I was getting nowhere so I went to the one place that has everything: the interwebnet tubes. Unfortunately, the Chia Pet website is a piece of garbage. As of this writing the site is not actually functional and even when it worked it wasn’t able to show me where I could buy one. But through more research I learned a great deal about Chia history, salvia hispanica, omega-3 levels and the fact I could probably just buy these damn things at health food store. Finally, through a random google search I found a dead link with a phone number of Chia’s parent company Joseph Enterprises.

I called JoeEnt and while the nice woman on the other end seemed confused at my request she told me that it would be no problem shipping me only the seeds sans pet. Only $5 for a pack of 3, or enough for 6 keyboards. I was a little worried because it sounded as if she actually wrote down my credit card number on a scrap of paper and poured the seeds from a giant crate into the envelope herself.

However, a week later I got a fat, rustling envelope in the mail that the dog tried to eat.



Tomorrow: Chia keyboard is go!

4 comments:

The Governess said...

WHOOOOOOO found the Chia? At "Lowes"? This story is full of falsehoods. I believe you meant I found it, and it was at a Wal-Mart off Rt. 1.

Nice try.

the Nabob said...

You're nuts. That was the Lowe's on Route 1. And I was using the royal "I," meaning us. If you want historical accuracy you should start your own blog.

And you found a worhtless, busted chia zebra, a mere fraction of this unnecessarily elaborate story.

The Governess said...

you're just jealous i found a chia first.

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