Yes, we have e-bananas
It is the year 2057. While teleportation technology has been perfected for a few years, it has recently gotten cheap enough to be commercially viable. Although not approved for use by humans, scientists and techies are convinced that it is reasonably reliable for the transport of consumer products, including foods. Despite reassurances, people were slow to accept the safety of the new technique. Now, however, the tide has begun to turn, and more and more people are accepting “e-food” as a less expensive alternative.
The scene: a venerable produce company (now owned by an entertainment conglomerate)
VP in Charge of Marketing: “I think we may have a problem.”
Prez: “We have a lot of problems. We’ve always had problems. Overcoming problems…that’s what we do. Post me.”
VPoM: “Well, it’s this e-food thing. Our latest polling is showing that a significant number of people don’t see it as less valuable than our traditionally-delivered product.”
Prez: “Yuh, well we saw that coming. We’ve invested in the transporters already. People are porting our bananas into subways and we’re even delivering into some of the cars that are left.”
VPoM: “Yes, we’ve got those home purchases. People just aren’t comfortable having somebody they’ve never heard of pop something into their homes. Oh, there are a few folks getting super-cheap bananas directly from growers in Ecuador. Most people, though, just want to buy the brands they know.”
Prez: “You’re not giving me the prob, Cobb…go ahead and drop me. I don’t do the blue, give me the red, Fred.”
VPoM; “Well, you know that growers’ representative they call Mr. Coyote?”
Prez: “Who doesn’t? That guy works totally without a backup. He’s kind of a BeePee, but what can you do? He’s signed up pretty much all the berries: straw, blue, goose…unscented durian? Brilliant! What happened? Did he sell the season’s watermelons to some other store?”
VPoM: “It’s worse than that.”
Prez: “He put orange juice over the ten dollar a gallon firewall?”
VPoM: “No, we think that’s a year away.”
Prez: “Did he give some other store an exclusive on something?”
VPoM: “Not exactly another store. He opened his own store.”
Prez: “Replay?”
VPoM: “He opened his own store. He’s selling fruit directly to customers.”
Prez: “What? He can’t do that! He doesn’t have the distribution network. There aren’t a hundred ziprails we don’t know about.”
VPoM: “He doesn’t need them, remember? He’s got transporters.”
Prez: “But…he sells to us!”
VPoM: “He used to sell to us.”
Prez: “Well, we know who Mr. Coyote is, but the average legaur out there doesn’t know. He’s got to know people won’t just walk into a new chain.”
VPoM: “Prez, he’ll have all the watermelons. He’ll have all the berries. He’ll have the orange juice…and he promises bananas under a dollar apiece.”
Prez: “The public won’t stand for that. They want competition.”
VPoM: “Um…they haven’t had competition on fruit prices since the Supreme Court okayed our cooperatives.”
Prez: “Right, TeeWhyVeeEm. That restored us. Get me Legal: there’s got to be something wrong with this.”
VPoM: “Will do, but I ran it by LawBot, and nothing showed up.”
Prez: “Maybe people don’t care that much about berries and orange juice.”
VPoM: “Of course, that’s possible. I ran a few polls on that, and–”
Prez: “Never mind. Port me a coffee.”
VPoM: “I would, but…have you seen this press release from Juan Valdez?”
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
