raganwald
(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)

Sunday, January 21, 2007
  Why you need a proper and fundamental education to be successful in life


There’s a twenty-five year high school reunion party. The class nerd shows up in his M3, he worked at a start-up, got some options, did ok for himself, everyone congratulates him. The class jock went into pharmaceutical sales, is a V.P. with one of the big drug companies, doing very well, everyone congratulates her.

Then the class stoner pulls up to the school in a limo, money practically falling out of his pockets, trophy girlfriend on his arm. What gives? They all figure he’s a coke dealer.

No, he explains, he was bumming around India when he met a guy with a rubber factory. The kind you wear. Everyone’s “ewww, gross.” The stoner continues: “This Indian dude makes them in printed patterns, I ask if he can make me one with my name on it, he says why not? I like it, I order a box more. So when I get home, everyone loves them, want some for themselves, great gag gifts.”

“So I write the Indian dude and start selling them with, you know, people’s names, and nicknames and stuff, they sell like hot cakes, always sell a ton of them around Valentine’s day.”

“Well, I can’t keep up so I get distributors, and people buy ‘em from me and package them up and sell them on, put ‘em in novelty stores, or in bars, I dunno, my distributors sell ‘em everywhere, now all I do is handle the paperwork and cash the cheques.”

“I pay around three cents each and in bulk I sell them for ten cents each. Cheap, yunno.”

“Isn’t it amazing,” the stoner asks, “how much money you can make on just seven per cent mark-up?”
 

Comments on “Why you need a proper and fundamental education to be successful in life:
Wouldn't that be a 233% mark up?
 
Or a 7 cent markup :)
Alternate theory, the ending of the article may emphasize the irony that may have been intended by its title.
 
Wouldn't that be a 233% mark up?

Would explaining the punch-line take a little of the fun out of the joke? Or should we go ahead and dissect the story?
 
Or should we go ahead and dissect the story?

No need - my irony flag was apparently reset overnight because I read your string literally.
 
Awesome. I must ask, though: Did this actually happen to you or is it just a (very well-delivered) joke?
 
Did this actually happen to you

I am absolutely not prepared to pigeon-hole myself as the class nerd, stoner, or jock :-)

I will say that I believe this joke is older than I am.
 
I hate to be negative guy here, bug http://www.storylog.com/how-my-start-up-failed/ .

Also I don't see the point of the story. Is it that with made-up, contrived examples you can prove any point?

(unless it was just to amuse and be funny in which case I apologize for being a pedantic party-pooper).
 




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Reg Braithwaite


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