2359. An unsavoury revenge

Thingamabob (I won’t use her proper name for fear of being accused of advertising) had a lovely first name until a business company used the word as a brand of breakfast cereal. Her parents had made up the name because they liked the way it sounded. After the branding of the breakfast cereal, Thingamabob didn’t stand a chance. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry would crack a joke about breakfast cereal. All jokes were corny. Thingamabob was sad. She was only fifteen years old. It is sad to see a fifteen-year old sad.

Thingamabob wrote a letter to the breakfast cereal company explaining how they had ruined her lovely name. She received a rude reply from a Ms Pamela Draper, the Company Director: “Go jump in the lake you silly girl.” Thingamabob never forgot (nor forgave) the harsh response.

It just so happened, not too many years into the future, that Thingamabob was the publicity director of a large toilet paper manufacturing company. They needed a new name for a product. The jingle was catchy and accompanied by a full orchestra:

When in need of toilet paper
Wipe your bum with Pamela Draper.

The brand became very popular.

1702. Exotic fossilization

The year was 3794. Professor Xiaoping Rakotoarisoa was cosmos-famous as a fossil personage. His speciality was human fossils. Other fossil experts throughout the cosmos were adept at studying relics of alternative intelligent life forms. On Earth it was particularly stunning when they discovered the overgrown ruins of a city on earth that experts believed was once called New York. Naturally Professor Rakotoarisoa led the research.

Of course they didn’t speak English, or even Spanish, in those far-off days in the future. They spoke quite a different language altogether. New York sounded profoundly exotic.

The city must have sunk into the sea rather suddenly, or perhaps the oceans rose to quickly cover it; something apparently to do with what they called Global Warming. There were literally thousands of human remains preserved in sediment. A good number were still wearing the clothes they died in. The clothing fabric preservation was remarkable.

The thing that most puzzled Professor Rakotoarisoa was that so many of them were wearing name tags. It was a puzzle, but a dream come true for those working in the field. And such wonderful names, such as Calvin Klein, Emporio Armani, Hugo Boss, and Ralph Lauren. Cotton-elastane Mix, Gucci, and Polyester were not uncommon names. Some of the names were quite long, such as Do Not Dry Clean, Do Not Iron, and Wash in Temperatures between 65 and 85°F. The Professor surmised that the longer names possibly belonged to royalty. The other factor Professor Rakotoarisoa found to be quite startling was how common the names were. Of all the thousands of clothed skeletons, perhaps there were fifty or sixty names that these people shared in common. Clearly New Yorkers were not a very imaginative bunch.

But my word! the thrill of discovery! Professor Rakotoarisoa was excited. His partner had just had a baby, and to celebrate his discovery of life as it was eons ago, Xiaoping Rakotoarisoa named his son Fruit of the Loom. If it had been a girl she would have been given an apparently royal name that tripped off the tongue: For Hygiene Purposes Please Keep Your Underwear on While Trying on the Garment.