Dyllan's Writings

So this story is literally just a text conversation I had with someone who had the wrong number. I only changed the last two messages and then some of the language. I also had to take screenshots of the pdf version of the document on my phone in an effort to save the formatting so it looks like texts.

*It should be worth noting that this story was written a while ago when certain internet trends were at a high. This was also for a class so the format had to meet requirements, and I like the story enough to share but I am too lazy to re-edit and format again.*

Before we start this interview, I feel like I should clarify a few things. Yes, I do work for Homeland, as my email mentioned; but no, you will not be getting an inside scoop into new defenses against terrorism or whatever. My work lies more specifically in the disaster prevention and management division. However, I work in a more covert organization within the division. It is our job to prevent the deadliest of disasters… any way we could. By agreeing to do this interview, you must understand the risk you are taking. You will be exposing a government conspiracy to a threat that only a small portion of the population is aware of. The rest of the people, well… they’re the problem.

I saw early on that the human race was doomed. And what should cause our destruction, but ourselves? Quite literally, too. Unfortunately, most people today are dumbasses. That’s the best way to put it. People, as a whole, are completely¸ insufferable! Sure, there are still a few individuals who don’t deserve to be lumped in with that generalization, but there really are so few of them. The number of idiots and jerks on this planet is waaaaaaaay too high. One day, I decided that if mankind was to survive and still be tolerable something had to be done about this ever-growing population of pricks.

I remember the day so clearly; it was rough from the beginning. As I was walking to my car to head to the office, I stepped in dog crap. I don’t have a dog. The wheezing bag of dicktips that lives next door (I suppose in your article you can paraphrase to “pompous rich neighbor” or something like that) refuses to keep an eye on his dog and it always craps in my yard. He saw me step in it too.

“That’s a real shitty way to start the morning,” he had said, laughing at his own stupid pun.

“Could be worse,” I replied. “I could be married to a cheating gold-digger. Ask your wife why the electrician has to come over three times a week while you’re at work. I think the answer may be a little… shocking.”

That wasn’t true, but his dog ruined my new shoes; I wasn’t gonna let that slide.

I scraped off my shoe and got into my car, thinking about how I wish there was a way I could legally run him down, back up, and do it again. I suppose there was a way, but there is just way too much paperwork involved.

On the way I remembered that I was out of laundry detergent. Yes, this is a crucial detail, I’m not getting sidetracked. The local stores would be closed when I got off, so I pulled into Dollar General on the way. As I was making my way down the aisles these annoying kids continued to follow me around, throw toys at each other, and just be overall obnoxious little twerps.

“Hey, mister,” the older one said. He couldn’t have been more than seven.

I ignored him and grabbed a plastic package of Tide Pods.

“Mister? Hullo?”

At this point he threw a football at the back of my head. I stopped and turned towards him.

“Kid, the only thing keeping me from breaking you in half is the fact that I don’t want two more of you running around. Besides, what the fuck are you doing just running around acting like this? Did somebody leave your cage door open?”

“Our mom is in the bathroom with Jimmy. He works the cashier in the mornings. We were told not to move, but we got bored. Can we get a piece of candy?”

“I don’t care. Get out of the way.”

“Is that candy?” he asked, pointing to the pack in my hand.

Seven is not that young. This kid was a dumbass. I suspected the mother was, too. “Yes,” I said with obvious sarcasm. “This label on the package here that says ‘CAUTION: Harmful if swallowed or put in mouth’ doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s actually there so that little kids don’t eat them and realize how delicious they are! This way there is more for us adults to snack on.”

Without hesitation, the kid grabbed a pack of pods, tore it open and tossed one in his mouth. His brother grabbed one, too. I didn’t get a chance to stop them. Granted, I didn’t try that hard, but if they were dumb enough to eat them…

After a few seconds, the oldest kid began coughing violently. Then came the crying and the puking. I’m pretty sure the younger one swallowed his.

I felt a little bad about the situation, so I got their mom’s attention before I left.

“Hey, lady!” I hollered while banging on the bathroom door. “Your dumbass kids are dying in the laundry detergent aisle.”

“What?!” she exclaimed through the commotion on the other side of the door.

“The little shits poisoned themselves.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m coming…”

“Yeah it sounds like you were,” I mumbled to myself as I put the packet of pods in my pocket and walked out.

On my way to the office from there, I was cut off twice, almost hit a pedestrian who was too busy on his damn phone to look both ways (and he also made me spill my coffee when I slammed on the breaks), and I had a guy riding my ass for half the drive. It’s pricks and dumbasses like these that raise the stress levels of everyone else to unhealthy levels. I realized that the big disaster I had been trained to watch out for and prevent had already begun. The dumbasses were taking over.

Panicked, I sped to the office and ran inside. I had to tell my supervisor (sorry, you seem like a nice reporter and all, but he’s staying anonymous. You’re lucky I’m giving you this story).

“Sir,” I said, slightly out of breath from the run. “The giant catastrophe we’ve been waiting for… it’s already happened.”

“Get a hold of yourself, man. What’s going on?”

“Sir, intelligent human life is dwindling fast. Soon all that remains will be idiots and jackasses!”

“You think I don’t already know that?” he laughed. “Son, the number of reasonable people on this planet has been going down for years. Two idiots get together, they have a kid or two. Too many of them probably. Then those kid turns out to be idiots, then those idiots grow up and get together with another idiot to make even more idiots, and the cycle just goes on and on.”

“There has to be something we can do!”

“We’ve tried everything. We can’t design a plague that only attacks based on manners or an IQ score. There is no way that we can eradicate the threat without harming at least some of the decent people. And as endangered a species as they are we can’t risk harming any!”

I had never felt so hopeless. I put my hands in my coat pockets. I think I was just reaching for a cigarette; I don’t remember for sure. Why I did isn’t important. What is important is the fact that I felt something else in my pocket. It was the pack of Tide pods.

I remembered what happened to the kids at the store, and I told my supervisor about it. He said something about how people are that dumb and how the other day his own son ate a spoonful of cinnamon, knowing it was a bad idea, because he saw some people doing it online.

“People are so easily influenced by the internet,” he had said.

And that was when it hit me: the destruction caused by consuming Tide pods, the influence the internet has over the weak-minded, the ease of access to the internet. A plan had formed.

“Sir!” I shouted, hope in my heart. “I think I know how we can get rid of some of these morons without hurting the decent people!”

He was hesitant, having already racked his own brain for years trying to solve this problem, but he heard out my plan and even contributed until we had perfected an impressive yet simple conspiracy.

We filmed a mock video of a kid eating one and posted his reaction online as a new challenge. I was tempted to volunteer (I wanted to serve my country and planet in the noble effort to get rid of stupidity). My supervisor brought his son in instead.

The plan worked perfectly. The video led to the creation of countless more, each one inspiring others. The dumbasses had fallen for the trap. Now, all over people are being injured or hospitalized from consuming chemicals; there have only been a few deaths but give it time. Humanity has hope at last.

So, there you have it. The real reason why the news is loaded with reports of people eating Tide pods. It’s all just an elaborate conspiracy created by the American government to get rid of idiots. But I didn’t ask for this interview just to brag about my success and heroism. I also wanted to thank you. It was your little idiots that gave me the idea while you were boning in the bathroom, so inadvertently it was you who started spreading these videos around the internet. Look at that, spreading more than just your legs this time!

           Her dream was shot down many times by many people: There is no such thing as a perfect corndog recipe; there is no possible way to make a six-foot-tall corndog (not counting the stick); there is no audience who is going to buy that product.

           Though there were many critics, her husband was the worst of all. “Quit daydreaming about giant corndogs,” he remarked one day. “It’s not going to happen. You only got even this far in life because of my money!”

           That had been the final straw. She could take being called stupid or a failure, but no way was she solely dependent on anybody to get anywhere in life. She had gotten by in life just fine before the marriage and she was going to get by just fine after. She was still friends with her old manager at the meat factory. She was sure that they could work something out. That was the day she decided to make her dream come true.

           She was told many things, but she listened to few. Her mother’s mother’s mother had a perfect recipe for cornbread that made its way down to her; she found a way to make a six-foot-tall corndog, and the local fairgrounds were always open to new products to advertise and bring in a crowd for their strange food expos.

           Her critics weren’t entirely useless, though. Six feet’s worth of meat was hard to come by.