New
hope for the
humor-impaired?
Silicon
giant Braine, Inc. bets psycho-prosthetic 'I get it!' devices
will tickle Christmas gift market...and save a marriage or two.
By Jules
Siegel
CASCADIA Bonita Braine,
aggressive young head of Braine, Inc., says she first became aware
of the humor-impaired market when her stepmother, Penny Braine,
accused ex-husband Loyal Braine (retired founder of Braine, Inc.)
of buying a stolen car.
"She had been
pestering Dad mercilessly to tell her the cost of his new Corniche,"
Bonita recalls. "To shut her up, he told her he got a really
great price on it because it was hot. He said it was perfectly
safe because he had it re-painted. She reported him to the police."
"Ding-dong.
That's Penny. I love her. She's all those people out there
suffering from the simple inability to get a joke, to
make witty remarks.What a market!"
The humor-implant,
now in final beta testing, will be introduced at the Spring Novelty
Trade Show in time for distribution as a Christmas item. Although
priced like a toy, this cybernetic psycho-prosthetic is ultimate
high-tech.
Billions of lines
of complex coding are etched into the tiny chip, containing all
the hints the humor-impaired need to function normally.
"Let's just
say it tickles your funny-bone," says Bonita, "The technology
is a trade secret. It works. Some users even report being able
to make jokes as well as get them."
"The hardest part
wasn't the coding, or the interface," she said. "It
whispers in the instructions at the ear nerve level. It was difficult,
though, to get this all into a chip no larger than a grain of
salt."
--from Forbidden Dreams, Fragments
of a Novel in Progress, by Jules Siegel