*By “Special Offer,” we mean “Obsequious Solicitation.”
It’s not like we haven’t tried.
In our tireless efforts to increase our gross receipts, we’ve resorted to double-billing, even triple-billing, but our over-educated readership must employ a small army of highly trained accountants to heartlessly snuff out this nearly legal initiative. (If you would like to avoid the menace of multiple billing and its associated surcharges, we have an insurance plan just for this almost certain eventuality. For details, see below, in the space provided after the last paragraph.)
To bolster our resume, we’ve declared ourselves the uncontested winner of prestigious awards (the Stump-Bertoni Award for Excellence comes to mind) that turn out, upon more scrupulous inspection, to have been fraudulently concocted by a dummy organization. (That we also created. But with only with the purest of intentions!) Despite the laurels we’ve accrued in this totally transparent process, our membership rolls have gone down. (Italics supplied to make our plight seem appropriately poignant.)
Because we are constantly being pestered to provide our visitation numbers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we engaged the services of trained professionals to address our deficiencies in this department. (I am not making this up.) Despite months of effort by social media savants, we didn’t gain a single subscriber. Whatever activity this initiative engendered remained within the confines of the site whose membership we were attempting to woo into our orbit. In short, we went fishing in an ocean teeming with fish and didn’t get a bite.
Just when we feared all avenues to enhancing our income stream were blockaded, we received several urgent messages from one “George Dawson” promising that “Experian Confirms $307,600 Credit Line for Realskiers!” No personal guarantees required! And here I thought I was up to my knees in skullduggery. I’m a piker compared to the likes of Mr. Dawson (and dozens of others of his ilk who have reached out to us with similar appeals). While the offer is indeed tempting, some tingling in my lizard brain warns me that Experian’s keepers may one day want their money back.
We know what you’re thinking.
“How much should I donate? What’s considered appropriate?”
Logic can only take you so far down this road. Science, trying to be helpful, informs us that there is no single answer, due to the quantum nature of, well, everything.
Such foggy thinking may appease the curiosity of the feeble-minded masses, but those of us who dare to think the improbable know that when words fail us, we turn to math for solutions. To find how much it’s widely considered to be appropriate to give, abide by this simple, 100% recycled, organic, numerology-inspired formula:
- Add up the numerals in your date of birth.
Example: June 6, 1956 = 6 + 6 + 21 = 33. - Multiply by your age. 33 x 68 = 2244
Revel in the eerie mysticism of the total, which won’t tell you how to live, but will suggest an amount to consider donating, depending on where one puts the decimal point. - You’ll be tempted to divide this generous sum until it is much, much smaller, a syndrome known as “Musk’s Fallacy.” Don’t fall for it.
Keep in mind this is the most money you or your heirs will ever pay. (This time.)
How to Raise the Dough You’ll Be Sending Us
Now that we’ve established the scientific foundations for sending us a fat slice or your net worth, permit me to suggest a few ways to raise said funds. (Cue the Christmas music to imbue these suggestions with the Spirit of Irrational Spending.)
- Charge your offspring for financial advice. You know how much financial advisors make? I don’t either, but I’ll bet it’s a pantload. Your kids likewise won’t have any idea, so you can charge the seed of your loins anything you like. Best of all, just like astrologers, you don’t have to ever be right!
- Create a home maintenance account to which you contribute every time you mow your lawn or shovel your driveway. Refer to these activities as “landscaping” and you can charge a pretty penny for it. When the accumulated funds start to become an accounting headache, forward the lot of it to me. (I mean, “us.”)
- You could make boundless fortunes in crypto. What could possibly go wrong?
- There’s always another “George Dawson.” His current offer is $260,000, no strings attached…
The mechanics of giving are simple. Right there on the Realskiers.com home page is a lavishly illustrated Tip Jar. Go tap-tap on the Tip Jar icon and you’ll go directly to the head of the line.
Now all you have to do is not yield to panic nor surrender to attention-sapping distractions. If you live long enough, your mind will eventually wander about on its own. This is not the time to indulge it.
Stay focused.
Find the Tip Jar icon.
Be absurdly generous.
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Reader Comments on Why Ski Sales Have Shrunk
In this week’s Revelation, I posted my top ten (twelve, actually) reasons why skis sales have shrunk, along with the musings of two Dear Readers on the subject. Note that the topic’s focus was ski sales at retail, not skier or skier/rider participation rates, subjects that are certainly related but just as certainly not the same.
Below are verbatim reader responses culled in the last 48 hours. I’ve corrected the odd typo, but otherwise left these contributions intact.
My thanks to all who took the time to tell their tales. – J
Top Reasons U.S. Ski Sales Have Shrunk
[As I wrapped up an earlier Revelation, I proposed to my beloved readership that they share their list of the top ten reasons U.S. ski sales have shrunk. I elicited only two written responses, so I’ll reproduce both here in their entirety, along with my musings on the subject. Consider these submissions tinder to light a fire under you, Dear Reader, to submit a list of your own.]
From Rick Pasturczak
1. Snowboarding-
I’ve noticed most snowboarders are 12 to 20 years old and once they become an adult, almost all stop. While I noticed most skiers continue on.
2. High school and college sports-
Schools now require practicing sports during Christmas and spring breaks taking away opportunities to hit the slopes and family vacations to the mountains. I’ve been told by many parents the coaches forbid them to ski.
3. Travel costs-
Lodging, airfare, ground transportation, and lift tickets.
4. Video games
5. Cost of lessons make it expensive to improve.
6. Confusing selection of equipment
7. Magazines and movies showing extreme skiing
8. Cruising. We need some resorts to be all inclusive.
9. Baggy pants. Bring back stretch pants and sex appeal.
10. Last, we need mother nature to be more consistent with snow.
The Making of a Skier, Part X: The Mechanics & Managers Workshop Tour
When I left Salomon in the spring of 1987, my motivations could be distilled into three principal components:
• The parent company declared it was moving its Reno-based North American HQ back from whence it came. Neither I nor my family had the slightest desire to return to New England.
• I felt I was spending more energy battling factions within my own company than I was out-flanking our competition. I’d worked more or less without a break since June of 1978. My thin veneer of patience cracked.
• I wanted to write screenplays. Not that I had demonstrated any talent for creative writing or had any training in the field. I’d written reams of technical swill, brochure copy, training manuals and memos which created the illusion that I could at least write something, so why not screenplays?
Note that none of these factors involves finding a new job. At the time, I didn’t want to resume wearing the shackles of employment as they would interfere with my ludicrous screenwriting ambitions. Then the stock market went into a tailspin in October, crippling what little equity I’d managed to accrue on my minimalist salary. Oops.
