Where would this world be without its Don Quixotes, its Kermit the Frogs? Those lovable and slightly off base dreamers? All I can say is that I wouldn’t want to live in a world where people couldn’t at least have the chance to reach out and try to make those dreams come true. Those are the brave people. They don’t just talk about their dreams. They are the ones who let go of that security blanket, throw the ballast overboard and let that hot air balloon soar to whatever heights they can possibly reach.
Such a person is Brandon Waddle. From the time he was a kid, Brandon was always a big dreamer. Maybe having someone hang a name like Brandon Waddle on you just makes you try all that much harder to be somebody in this world. And Brandon sure has tried. He has spent most of his life hoping to make something of his life. But life hasn’t always been a bed of roses for him. In fact, for the most part it’s been mostly thorns. But does that stop Brandon from his quest? No. It just makes him dig in harder, take another step outside the box and try again. Like Cervantes says of his infamous Knight-errant, Brandon is ”spurred on by the conviction that the world needed his immediate presence.”
And yes, Brandon. The world does. Someplace, sometime, there will be glory for you. Never give up. Don’t let this world get you down. Remember that you are free to be whatever you want to be. Or as our famous Knight would put it, ”Liberty, Sancho, my friend, is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed on mankind”. Or perhaps Kermit put it best when he said, “It’s not easy being green.” Stay green, Brandon. And don’t worry about finding your way in this world. Let it find you.
Here is Brandon’s story . . .
Brandon Waddle was always a dreamer. Even when he was a kid, he always had these get rich quick schemes. He collected soda bottles, but his parents complained about all the ants that it caused in the garage. He collected newspaper, but he couldn’t sell it to anyone and it got wet in the rain and turned to mush. He had a paper route. He was the kind of kid who sold the seeds and greeting cards they advertised on the back of comic books trying to win the bicycle, but ended up with a cheap transistor radio instead. Nobody ever really gets the bicycle. He even collected Bazooka gum wrappers until he found out you needed like 12 billion of them just to get a bell for your bike.
When he got older, he was always going around to garage sales, hoping to be the guy who pays a quarter for the item worth a million dollars—like you read about in the papers.
He tried alpaca farming, but the alpacas all ran away because he forgot to lock the gate on their pen. That was a darn shame, too, because those alpacas were really cute. He bought 10,000 acres of land near the water in Florida to build hotels on; only to find out that the water it was near was The Everglades swamp. He was a used car salesman, but he was too honest for the job. He kept telling his customers what was wrong with the cars. Over the years, he has probably bought a million dollars worth of lottery tickets. He’s the guy who actually orders the magazines and returns the Publisher’s Clearing House contest forms. He even owns all those books about free money from the government, although there doesn’t seem to be any money left anymore. Just a lot of books.
Brandon watches a lot of television—always searching for some kind of trend or some new invention where he can get in on the ground floor and make a fortune. One of the shows he watches without fail is Oprah, because she always has the latest information on her show.
That’s how he found out about the acai berries and the acai diet that Oprah swears by. And he had a great idea. He was going to sell his house, buy a farm out in Persiphonia’s countryside (we still have one!) and become Persiphonia’s first acai farmer. He figured he could sell the berries to all the gyms that have juice bars and to the beach resorts. Everybody wants to lose some weight! He even had the idea of making acai berry muffins. He was sure about this one. Acai berries were going to finally bring Brandon the fortune he always dreamed about.
So he sold the house, bought the farm, ordered 100 thousand acai berry plants and began to plan for his future. How hard could it be to grow berries? Berries grow wild all over the place. And look at cranberries. A few years ago, the only time you heard about cranberries was at Thanksgiving. Now cranberry juice is the biggest thing. And it’s great with vodka. He began to dream up acai and vodka cocktails.
But there were a couple problems. He wasn’t aware that the episodes of Oprah he was watching were reruns from over a year ago. Since then, Oprah has gained around 50 pounds. It seems the acai diet she raved about didn’t do her very much good after all.And acai juice doesn’t taste too great, either.
Then when the bushes arrived last month, it was freezing in Persiphonia. He hadn’t checked on the climate needed to grow acai bushes. It seems they grow in the Brazilian Rainforest—a far cry from the below zero temperatures we were having in Persiphonia. He tried to take the plants inside and keep them warm, but the farmhouse wasn’t big enough to hold them all. He farmed them out to his friends, promising them a piece of the action. He bought space heaters and grow lamps. He stood over the bushes misting them night and day to simulate the conditions in the rainforest.
But it was too little too late. All 100 thousand of the bushes died. Despite the government’s alleged bailout plans, Brandon lost the farm. He’s currently living on a friend’s couch. And his friend’s wife isn’t very happy about it.
Perhaps your city has a climate more conducive to growing acai berries. Or maybe you can use a lot of acres of Florida swampland. If so, Brandon is your guy. Right now, he is so downhearted that he doesn’t even feel he fits in with bipolar people. He needs a fresh start.
Help Brandon Waddle out. He still has all the books about getting free money. Who knows? One day, he could be one of your famous tycoons. But right now, he is coming dangerously close to becoming Persiphonia’s newest homeless person. Give him a break. Everything he owns is in his car. He can leave immediately. Just send directions.
And while you’re at it, maybe you can help Oprah get her weight problem under control, too. This yo-yo dieting thing she has going is not healthy for her.
If you need entertainment, I am sending along a DVD of the first season of The Beverly Hillbillies. How cool was that? The guy goes out to shoot some possums for dinner and ends up striking oil. Why can’t something like that happen to Brandon Waddle?
Your stories are SHIT!