Channel Surfing with Satan

Click.

"Leading statisticians released the results of a ten year survey today. They claim to have discovered a fool proof away to eliminate crime in ten years. Jack Poop author of Statisticians Don't Lie... Honest, says the one common element to all crimes is victims. By arresting the victims of crimes, criminals would no longer have anyone to victimize. He said it would also give the common man a chance to watch free cable television in some of the most luxurious prison cells in America..."

"I'm dying. I should just get up and do something. Go somewhere."

"Why?"

"I'm feeling unproductive. Shouldn't I be a valuable member of the community?"

"You are."

"No, I'm not."

Click.

"In conjunction with the criminal rehabilitation bill, TeachCrim proudly announces the next step in crime prevention and rehabilitation --Algebra Locks. Now we can cut out the lengthy prison process in which criminals serve time and suck up valuable tax payer's money. Instead of going to prison to learn a trade, criminals will now just have to solve the intellectual challenges presented by Algebra Locks. Just imagine it. A criminal gets to your car. He sees no keyhole. He sees a slim jim block has been installed to keep out illegal entry. Just as he's about to smash the glass in your windshield and take the car anyway, he sees a small keyboard on the driver's side door. It reads, "If you can solve the equation, you can have the car." You may think this drastic, but in most cases the criminal is going to take the car whether there is protective measures or not. At least this way you have educated a man that could possibly go on to become professor in mathematics. Now, you don't have to pay the high taxes of housing criminals. You have taken the responsibilities of prisoner reform into your own hands..."

"Why do you think I'm a valuable member of the community?"

"You're a consumer."

"Aren't we all?"

"Not yet."

"Why is being a consumer such a good thing?"

"Puts a lot of people to work so they can earn more money."

Click.

"Welcome to Dreams Crushed Incorporated. Do your competitors have great ideas and thoughts that are completely innovative, creative, fresh, and inventive? Well think of it no more. Instead of trying to hire more intelligent staff at higher wages, or spending an ungodly amount on business espionage, try us. We exist to offer you an alternative. An alternative that enables you to kick back and watch your competition dissolve into fragmented, lethargic, self-doubting, time conscious incompetents. Our technicians and field agents are thoroughly trained in an art that until now has been totally undefined, the art of hopelessness. Please give us a call to receive a free pamphlet detailing the following options...

1. Infrastructure deterioration.

2. Assassination of free will.

3. Bureaucratic infestation.

4. Management inflation.

5. Theft of competitors ideas.

For a complete guide to the world of Dreams Crushed Incorporated, please give us a toll free call at 1-800-666-0666..."

Click.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Why?"

"If being a consumer is good because it gives more people the opportunity to make money, then all I'm doing is making more consumers."

"So?"

"It's a viscous cycle. People get so busy they don't stop to think about the better things in life."

"Well, that's the whole goal."

"That's horrible."

"That's my job. I am Satan you know."

"Why do you do it?"

"I've got to buy some things and pay my cable bill."

"Oh, that makes sense."

Click.