Free Your Body is Changing by Jack Pendarvis

received my two hundred dollars. I’m going to make Mom a get-well card using PhotoShop. I’m getting pretty good at it.”
    “That sounds thoughtful,” said my father.
    “That means I’m going to be in your bedroom for awhile,” I said. “Undisturbed.”
    “Be my guest. I can’t sleep anyway,” he said. “I’m too worked up.”
    “Watch some TV,” I suggested.
    “They urinated on the surge protector and now the TV doesn’t work anymore,” he replied.
    I then left my father to his own devices. Once I had secured my parents’ bedroom door I looked up India’s MySpace page and masturbated to relieve myself of the stress. Afterward I sent an email to Laura Bush via the White House web site, briefly outlining the events of the day, which is a hobby of mine.

COURAGEOUS BLAST:
    The Legacy of America’s Most radical Gum
    CONRAD HATCHER, Project Manager:
Look. We all knew we had something awesome. The suits didn’t know. They were all like, “Whoa!” They were like, “Dude!” I didn’t care what they said. I was all up in Wayne Goodwin’s face. I was all like, “Dude, we’re going to make a gum that’s like, radical and everything?” And he was all like, “Whatever.”
    WAYNE GOODWIN, VP—Marketing:
I suppose I had some misgivings of a practical nature. But I think you will find that overall there hasn’t been a more enthusiastic supporter of the gum, in terms of letting those guys explore, you know, and find their level. I sensed from the very beginning that we were on to something quite important here. The undiscovered country, if you will. Uncharted waters. Here there be monsters. Bracing, exciting stuff. Danger, Will Robinson! Wonderful stuff. Fearless.
    BRAVO JONES, Logo Designer:
Conrad is a risk taker. I will give him that. We’ve had our differences, as is well documented. But I like to give credit where credit is due. It’s something I do naturally. I’m a truth teller. A lot of times that freaks people out. I always say, “Look, I’m just being honest.” You know, “You’re fat, you’re a pig,” or whatever. My attitude is, take it or leave it. But don’t put me down for telling it like it is. For example, at the first meeting with Conrad I say, “Hey, what’s the name of this gum?” Because at that time the gum had no name. I mean I can do a lot of things, and do them fantastically well, but I’m not a miracle worker! Am I? Maybe I am. Otherwise I honestly believe there would have been a gum in the stores with no name on it. And that would have blown people’s minds. Not in a good way.
    CONRAD HATCHER:
It sounds funny, but it’s really not. I was, like, looking at the package and all of a sudden I was like, “Hey.” You know what I mean? I was like, “What’s in there?” I was trying to get inside the customer’s head or whatever. So I was like, “What’s in this package of gum, dude?” And then I was like, “I don’t know, but it better be gum.” Like I was answering my own self. Weird. Like I was having two parts of the same conversation, but there’s only like one of me there. So I was just like, It Better Be Gum.
    WAYNE GOODWIN:
What we were doing with It Better Be Gum was throwing caution to the wind. I mean, why not? It seems easy in retrospect, but at the time it was a truly courageous vision. There’s a lot of talk right now about courage and whatnot, but whenever I’m pressed for a definition I just say, take a look at It Better Be Gum. Try to place yourself in what was really a gum vacuum at that time, and imagine It Better Be Gum bursting forth like some sort of courageous blast of dynamite. That’s courage. To create something out of nothing. Which is what we do every day in this business. And I fully credit Conrad with that. He was the one with the forethought to say, “Who cares if it’s a chewing gum or a bubble gum?” You know. “We’re not going to tell people. We’re not going to give them that crutch. Let them decide for themselves