Make The Sale

It's a relief to be back from my trip to Egypt. Chaos! I was sent over by Pitney to renew our contract with the Egyptian government negotiating for another 30 years and to showcase our new stamp machines. The PBowles XRGood600 is lighter, faster with max RAM as no other stamp machine has had before.

Apparently some people over there aren't happy about their President signing up for another score and 10, which to me is just plain nuts. If we had the smarts to have had a President for 30 years we could have had President Reagan for another 22, and he would only have been dead for six of those years,- but think about all he could have accomplished. America would have ended poverty!! (sending the poor to Haiti and New Orleans). Changing our minds every 4-8 years is nuts, and a waste of time. In 2012 we'll go back to a conservative candidate, get sick of him, and change our minds in 2016. Vote 'em out of office? That's a waste of paper and effort- just feeds into repeating the cycle. Better to keep 'em in office; keep the same guy around and you don't have to bother with the responsibility of making decisions. How many evenings are wasted cramming through the election books?- My life was easier before I had to pay bills or do the laundry, or vote. Let them feast on a buffet of the countries resources- just toss us a bone or two, now and then.

President Mubarak, who our team affectionately refers to as the Prez with the Fez has learned the advantages with keeping certain things the way they are- less hassles. Also, there's more cool name tie ins that people aren't getting: For example and note Legal Dept: for free, Obama's campaign slogan in 2012: Mu barak? Mo' Barak! 4 MO'!!

With stamp machine in hand (it's only 4 pounds!) and just a light travel bag, i landed in Cairo Sunday night and the place was jamming. I foolishly thought the hordes of folks were waiting for me; the lights were low but no one yelled "surprise" or "welcome". Obviously most of these folks were wanting to get out. Not me. I had business to do and a contract to honor. Catching a taxi (advice: negotiate your daily rates) with an odd fellow by the name El Spitzer- said he was from New York but needed to move to Egypt for therapy for his bad back, we drove into town. El said that people weren't happy with being kept down; that at one point, they actually dug the President as a good man. However he enjoyed the post of top dog too long scheming to keep the gig in the family- his soul hardened to the plight of the working folk...blah, blah, blah. Amidst the obvious unrest before me- people in the streets wandering in all directions, voices crashing as thousands of simultaneous home run calls, smoke and cracking of things burning,, I needed to get out and finish my quest on foot.

It was difficult to make my way through the mass of people as they bumped into me, glaring, considering my motives but continually moving forward in whichever direction they headed. The whole scene made me nervous, unsettled. At one point some idiot grabbed my stamp machine and already on edge, I let him have it. Furious, I must have punched him ten times. Only later did i realize that the dude who I thought was trying to steal the XRGood600 was CNN news guy Anderson Cooper.

Apparently he slipped trying to avoid some government sponsored goons, using his hands to brace himself on my stamp machine. If you can get any footage of Cooper getting pounded on, when the people move away, you can see me doing the Brian Wilson salute to the sky move. Cooper, I apologize. I wish you had said something other than stop and please don't do this.
I don't watch CNN or the news but if you had offered something like, "Me. on SNL. with Pee Wee Herman" in a Shatner like cadence- we'd be all good.

I couldn't tell what was going on really- only that no one seemed especially happy. I was just hoping that if these really were goons sent by the government or, just the government un-governing, I wanted to be out of there before they decided to handle civilian unrest as China does; by sending tanks in to run over everybody. Make lemonade out of lemons? In China, it's making tomato juice out of people.

Anyway to make this story complete, found my Hani (President Mubarak), made the sale and we should be good for another 30 years...unless the people get in the way. Don't screw it up like you did over here messing with Nixon.

Postscript: Darn! I thought I had found Hani Mubarak on Facebook. I thought if 5 or 6 of us could reach out to him, we could end this thing. We could all sign our names to a message like:
"Hey man, this is so uncool. Sincerely" That would work on Twitter too. Marching in the streets is so old school; social protest of the future is all about networking on Facebook. Plus you can half watch a Charlie Sheen sitcom at the same time. I typed this sentence while I finished my lunch, pretended to work, and feeling heartfelt stuff for people in Egypt. Maybe Hani Mubark is the same guy.