Over the years, I have thought up several business concepts that are so obviously brilliant that the only way they could conceivably fail would be if somebody actually tried them. This is where you fit in. Pick any one of the concepts below and invest your life savings in it. If you are not completely satisfied that the concept was not all that I said it was, if not more, then you do not owe me a cent. Sound too good to be true? Well just wait until you see these concepts!

This concept is based on the known fact that it is impossible to get electronic devices repaired. Let’s say you have purchased a videocassette recorder, and after a while, because of normal wear and tear such as your nephew Dwight stuck a Polish sausage into the slot and pushed the fast forward button, it stops working.

Now you have two options. One is to take it back to the store where you got it, which will send it back to the “Factory Service Center.” Here’s what I have to say about this option: Hahahahahahaha. Because the “Factory Service Center” is in fact a giant warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of broken electronic devices, including 1952 Philco television sets. The staff consists of two elderly men, named Roscoe and Lester, who will poke around inside your VCR with cheap cigars and go, “Lookit all them wires in there!”

Your other choice is to take it to a local “repair shop,” which will consist of a sullen person standing behind a counter with an insulting sign.

Obviously, neither of these is an acceptable option. So the logical thing to do, when an electronic device breaks, is to just throw it away and get another one, right? But you can’t bring yourself to do this. You paid $700 for it, and you’d feel guilty. So you put yourself in the hands of incompetents and thieves.

This is where the Electric Appliance Suicide Module would come in. It would be a device costing $29.95 and consisting of a small, powerful explosive charge, coupled to a tiny electronic “brain,” which the consumer would implant inside his VCR or television set via a simple procedure requiring only a screwdriver and three beers. They way the Suicide Module would work is, as soon as the brain sensed that the appliance was no longer working properly, it would set off the charge. For safety reasons, this would occur in the middle of the night, when the consumers were asleep. The consumer would be awakened by a large BLAM!! in his living room, and he’d come rushing out, and there, where his television set used to be, he’d see a grayish cloud of vaporized plastic, and he’d say: “Huh! Time to get a new TV!” Besides eliminating a lot of consumer guilt, the Suicide Module would probably provide a very powerful incentive for appliances to perform well. They would work their little diodes to the bone, for fear that otherwise the Suicide Module might think they were starting to come down with something.

I have studied American eating preferences for years, and believe me, this is what people want. They don’t want to go into an unfamiliar restaurant, because they don’t know whether the food will be very bad, or very good, or what. They want to go into a restaurant that advertises on national television, where they know the food will be mediocre. This is the heart of the Mister Mediocre concept.

The basic menu item, in fact the only menu item, would be a food unit called the “patty,” consisting of—this would be guaranteed in writing—”100

percent animal matter of some kind.” All patties would be heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devices immediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle, and a little slip of paper stating: “Inspected by Number 12.” The Lunch or Dinner Patty would be any Breakfast Patties that didn’t get sold in the morning. The Seafood Lover’s Patty would be any patties that were starting to emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be Seafood Lover’s Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as “Nuggets.” Any nuggets that had not been sold as of the end of the month would be used to make bricks for new Mister Mediocre restaurants.

If you have young children, you know how they tend to develop powerful attachments, similar to cocaine addiction only more expensive, to the toy industry’s many lovable and imaginative licensed characters such as (for girls) Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Wee Whiny Winkie, The Dweebs, and The Simper Sisters; and (for boys) He-Man, The Limb Whackers, The Eye Eaters, Sergeant Bicep, and Testosterone Bob’s Hurt Patrol. Once a child gets one of these characters, he or she suddenly just has to have all the others in the set, plus the accessories, all of which are—believe me when I tell you this—Sold Separately.

So I have come up with this concept for a truly irresistible licensed character named Bingo the Leech. Bingo would be an adorable little stuffed leech with big loving eyes and a tube of industrial quick-drying epoxy concealed in his lips. When a child picked up Bingo at the store and squeezed him, Bingo would emit some epoxy and become permanently bonded to the child’s skin, and the parent would have to buy him so as to avoid shoplifting charges. Then the parent would have to buy all the other members of the Bingo family, because only by combining their lip secretions would you obtain the antidote chemical required to get Bingo off the child before it was time to go to college.

DETROIT—The General Motors Corporation reported today that it lost $64.6 million in the first fiscal quarter.

“We have no idea what happened to the money,” said top GM officials, in unison. “One moment it was lying on the dresser, and the next moment it was gone! We could just kick ourselves! Ha ha!”

At some point in your rise to the top, you may find yourself appointed to a job where you have to know something about finances, such as as Controller or Treasurer or Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. If this happens, you should read this chapter. But I warn you: this stuff is deadly dull, as is illustrated by accountants. You never hear people say: “Let’s have some fun tonight! Let’s go find some accountants!” So unless you have no choice, you should skip this chapter. I myself am going to require powerful illegal stimulants to write it.