|
Blinky:
Okay, settle down. It's a madhouse out there, and I want to
know why.
Alf:
Where's Santa? Has he been informed about this?
Blinky:
Never mind Santa. As far as you're concerned, Iām Santa.
Tell me what happened.
Beebo:
It's a glitch in the standard operating procedure. We were
just modifying the product to bring it into line with the
demographics.
Blinky:
Which demographics, dammit?
Beebo:
Research did a survey of girls in the 6-to-10 age group, and
found out that the body-image projection was skewed way off
the previous opinion base. The proportions we've been using
for our teen fashion doll molds are out of style. Big ones
are hot.
Blinky:
Big ones?
Beebo:
Double D's. Big, fat, wobbly, knobbly, pendulous, splendulous,
double-D bazonkers.
Blinky:
Sweet little six-to-ten-year-old girls want bazonkers?
Beebo:
Real belly-smackers, by all indications. It was right there
in the numbers.
Blinky:
And you flexed with this demographic.
Alf:
Yup. Faxed it right over to Design. They slapped new boobies
onto the sketches and sent them on to Mold-making.
Blinky:
The sketches for the Barbies?
Alf:
The Skippers and Beckies, too.
Blinky:
The Skipper and Becky dolls are supposed to be in junior
high school.
Alf:
Yeah, but the demographics...
Blinky:
Okay, never mind the frigging Skippers and Beckies.
Then what happened?
Beebo:
The standard accelerated production process for design revisions...
new sketches, new molds, then straight to Fabrications.
Blinky:
You rushed molds for double-D Barbies and Skippers and Beckies
into Fabrications.
Alf:
Well, the Beckies aren't exactly double-D.
Blinky:
What?
Alf:
The Beckies are bigger.
Blinky:
What?
Alf:
In anticipation of the continuation of the trend, we took
the Beckies up to an F-cup.
Blinky:
We're making F-cup Beckies???
Alf:
Actually, they look really nice. Very realistic. They don't
stand up on their little feet anymore the way they're supposed
to, but...
Beebo:
But everybody in Fabrications likes them.
Alf:
In fact, that's the problem.
Blinky:
What's that supposed to mean?
Alf:
Well, the new Beckies are eighteen inches tall, which is,
uh...
Beebo:
...Which is exactly the height of most of the gnomes on the
assembly line, who haven't seen their wives, girlfriends,
or ripe fruit since the production cycle started in July...
Alf:
...So when the first batch from the new molds came down the
conveyor belt, uh...
Beebo:
...Well, there was this undeniable attraction...
Blinky:
Oh God...
Alf:
Yeah.
Blinky:
Jesus. I suppose we're just lucky the Beckies aren't anatomically
correct.
Beebo:
Ummm...
Blinky:
Oh no.
Alf:
Well, heh, somewhere between Design and Mold-Making, somebody
had a little fun with the sketches, and some stuff didn't
get erased that was supposed to...
Beebo:
...Anyway, every time one of the Beckies comes down the chute
onto the conveyor, the boys in Fabrications jump her.
Alf:
You know how gnomes are...
Beebo:
They can't seem to help themselves. Beckies are poseable,
for God's sake. At that point the hair hasn't even been sewn
onto them...
Blinky:
So they're humping 'em bald?
Alf:
That's about the size of it.
Blinky:
Okay, okay... we can salvage this. All we have to do is get
them back onto some sort of production schedule...
Alf:
Afraid not, boss...
Beebo:
Quality Control says the final product is, well, kind of spoogey...
Blinky:
Spoogey?
Alf:
The Beckies are coming off the line full of gnome squirt.
Beebo:
It's fluorescent.
Blinky:
Jesus, to think that I left Microsoft for this job...
Alf:
What, you want us to release them as public betas?
Blinky:
That's not a bad idea, but I have a better one. Boys, I'm
going to save our asses!
|
