I think I can go ahead and call this another entry in the “Long Cons That Didn’t Pay Off” file.
A few months ago, I put this post it note on my office computer.
Whenever anyone asked about it I’d say “Don’t worry about it” or “It’s personal” or “Oh, that’s right, cats, I almost forgot, thank you.”
Then I’d draw a picture of a cat, write a date on it…
…and place it in our office’s Suggestion Box. I did this every single day I was in the office. Here are some of the cats I made.
It’s important to have fun with your hobbies, so I made sure I varied my style and even embraced some weird impulses.
Hey, look at this cool fella!
Uh huh. I think I was sad that day.
I did this because I (and you) deserve to have as much fun as I (and you!) want, and because long cons lead to some of my favorite jokes. The ultimate end goal of this long con was an email. I was going to put a picture of a cat in our suggestion box every single day until some frustrated administrative employee of the company sent out a company-wide email that said “Whoever keeps putting pictures of cats in the suggestion box, PLEASE STOP.” I wanted that for two major reasons, but first hey do you want to see this cat I made?
That. Cat. Fucks.
Anyway, reason number one was Magic. There are about 400 people in this office (Cracked is owned by a larger media company). Those people come to work and go about their day, and one day they’d see an email about a very dedicated, insane, mystery person who has evidently been filling the suggestion box with dozens of hand-drawn cat pictures, one every single day. That email (the “Please stop putting pictures of cats in the suggestion box; this is a business” email), would serve as a reminder; life is weird and funny and stupid and sometimes stuff like this happens, and isn’t that wacky and fun? You live in a world where some goofball could get bored and draw forty cats with seemingly no end game or motive. Isn’t the world a wacky and fun place to live? Look at this fat piece of shit.
Reason number two was just make Soren and my other immediate coworkers laugh. The joke would be simple. We all get an email that says “Whoever keeps putting pictures of cats in the suggestion box, PLEASE STOP.” And then I would nervously crumble up the post-it note that says “CATS” and reassure the rest of the team that it probably isn’t worth looking into, and I wouldn’t draw any connections between that email and my behavior over the last two months. Then all of my coworkers would see what I’ve been up to and marvel at my dedication to the joke, because we’re all good joke-makers here, and Game respects Game.
But that email never came. I’ve been drawing pictures of cats since June, since fucking June, you guys, here’s another cat.
No one’s said anything. No one’s said a god damned word. And I know what you’re thinking: “The suggestion box is obviously just for show, they have it to placate the employees, no one ever checks it, and now it’s full of cats.” But you’re wrong. Dead wrong. I can see into the box, I KNOW someone has been emptying it. We even had an all-hands meeting where our CEO addressed the suggestion box specifically to call out the most popular suggestion (it was something about not pictures of cats so who even gives a shit).
Someone has been going through that box, at least at the end of every week. This person has been stoically ignoring what at this point is an obvious cat problem that someone at this company has. This person wants to go on pretending they’re NOT looking at pictures of cats every day, this person wants to pretend that the world isn’t like it is. You fucking rat. You fucking rat in a maze.
But you know what? This person (who again is choosing to REJECT THE TRUTH THAT IS ALL AROUND THEM), this person is stronger and more dedicated than me. I can’t keep making cats. I can’t keep making cats for this joke that’s never going to pay off. I had a lot of fun, I feel like I have a better understanding of what a cat nose looks like and I had an excuse every day to get up and move my legs a little bit, but I don’t want to do this anymore, so I’m stopping, so I lost, so I’m a loser.
But the REAL loser, I think you’ll agree, is everyone else who ISN’T me. They lost because they’ll never be party to the EXPERIENCE that I wanted to provide them with (completely free of charge, I forgot to mention). They won’t have the memory of that weird day at the office when suddenly everyone was talking about the mystery cat guy, and like wondering “Is he single he sounds cool,” or like “What if the mystery cat person is a girl, Janet, did you even fucking think of that it’s 2015.” Janet and Grimace won’t have the memory of that conversation, because that conversation won’t happen, because someone in this office refuses to do his or her part in what this voter is calling “The Con of the Century” by sending a simple god damn email. He or she robbed this entire building of a Moment and that, friends and ex-lovers, is the real #tragedy.
