Shrink Wrapped

People are the most foolish things there are, sillier than dogs chasing a motorcycle or kittens entertaining a mouse. Shortsighted, credulous, gullible—when it comes to the human race I could go on and on. Take their understanding of “modern” technology, inventions, scientific wonders, for example. We put a few thousand condos on the Moon and people get excited. Well, really, houses with indoor plumbing are nothing new. Yes, they’re on the Moon, but so what? Rockets have been around for well over a thousand years, the ones that take people to and from the Moon are just more refined versions. What’s the big deal? Sure, we’ve got computers in our wallets, video phones on our key chains, we make instant purchases with the press of a thumbprint against the face of a watch, but none of that is really earth-shattering, just an incremental improvement of technology that’s been around for decades. Yet the average citizen thinks it’s all so “modern.” It makes me want to laugh. Then, when a really big breakthrough does come along, a quantum leap in technology, it’s ignored, feared, then driven from the market by a few small minds. How can I say that? From my own tragic personal experience. Who am I?

My name is David G. Wilaru, wordsmith. I carry a pen. Until a few weeks ago I was the Director of Marketing & Communications for Xcitement, Inc., the developer of the most revolutionary invention of the century.

What is this miracle product, you ask? The goal of Xcitement, Inc. was nothing less than to bring the benefits of Mental Health to every American with a few spare dollars in his pocket and a copy of The Sharper Image catalog in his mailbox.

If we look at the history of psychiatry we see that the profession has been a miserable failure. It’s like a fancy French meal: only a few people can make one; it takes forever, costs a fortune, usually isn’t completely successful, and in a few hours you need to do it all over again. Where is the counterpart to the TV dinner for the world of psychotherapy? It has never existed, until now.

My boss, Mr. Slumber, wanted to call our first entry in this untapped market the “Brain Box.” Of course, I immediately talked him out of it. Would you want to put your head in a brain box? Of course not! It all sounds so “electrical.” I suggested that we name our product the “Confidential Advisor.” Like your best friend or your hairdresser or your racquetball coach.

“We’ll give it a try, Wilaru,” Mr. Slumber agreed reluctantly, “but don’t you think it should have more of a high-tech name? Something with a lot of ‘x’es in it?”

“How much are you going to charge for it?”

“The base model will be $495.00. Of course, we’ll have a full line. The top end will only be available at selected shops on Rodeo Drive. It will have simulated platinum coated contacts and come with a Gucci carrying case for $9995.00. But what does that have to do with it?”

“Mr. Slumber,” I began as tactfully as possible, “it is a well known principal of marketing that the price of a product and its name are inexorably linked. You could no more sell a cheap model with a classy name than you could sell a high end product with an ordinary name.”

“Why do you say that?”

Poor man, he had no marketing skills whatsoever. I tried to explain as diplomatically as possible.

“It’s a matter of trust, you see.”

“Trust?”

“Well, perhaps distrust would be more accurate. If someone offered to sell you a new Mercedes for $15,000, what would you think?”

“I’d think that it was stolen.”

“Yes, but what if the Mercedes Benz company offered a Mercedes model for only $15,000. Then what would you think?”

Slumber paused a moment then replied. “Probably that it was some stripped-down car made in China that they only put the Mercedes logo on.”

“Exactly! You can’t call the cheap version of something the ‘Imperial Mark IV’ and have it succeed any more than you can call the expensive model the ‘Classic’ and expect hot sales. Our base product will be called the ‘Confidential Advisor Classic’ and the Beverly Hills model the ‘Imperial Power Advisor.’ ”

“You may have something there, Wilaru,” Mr. Slumber said after a few seconds contemplation. “When can you get started on the user’s manual?”

“I’ll need one of the units for testing purposes. It should only take a week or two to rough something out.”

“OK, go down and see Fleem in the lab.”

“Fleem in the lab?”

“Bart Fleem, our chief engineer. Tell him to give you a loaner.”

So I went to the lab. It looked like most labs I had seen—machines, wires, knobs, gauges, lights, cables. The employees looked pretty normal too—Grateful Dead T-shirts with pocket protectors, beards, Thom McAn shoes with white socks. I found Bart Fleem perched on a stool in the corner.

He was playing a computer game on the $19,000 engineering workstation. I think it was a variation of the classic “Dracula Bats of Doom.” The object of the game was for Squeaky to find the entry code for the phase converter which would allow the dilithium crystals to be recharged before Scotty was vaporized by the Klingons, or something like that. Except that this version was a little bit different; all the characters were nude. Was that Lt. Uhura chained to the communications console?

“Uh, excuse me, Dr. Fleem,” I asked hesitantly.

“Wait, I’ve got to get past those Aldeboran Shellmouths. Wait, wait, yes!” Fleem shouted triumphantly as Squeaky negotiated the last of the obstacles between himself and the Amazon Princess who guarded the bin containing the quadrotriticale.

“It’s Mister.”

“Wilaru, David Wilaru.”

“No, I mean it’s Mister Fleem, not Doctor Fleem.”

“Terribly sorry, Mr. Fleem.”

“Not your problem. What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Slumber said you would let me have a loaner.”

“Brain Box?”

“Actually, we’re renaming it ‘The Confidential Advisor.’ Do you have one you can give me?”

Fleem stared at me for a moment, then nodded his head a fraction of an inch. “One Brain Box coming up.” I decided that it would be impolite to correct him and just smiled tolerantly. Fleem disappeared through the door to the parts room then reappeared a moment later. Cradled gently in his hands was a box about the size of a small stereo amplifier. It had six knobs and four lights on the front. Two cables protruded from the back.

“You know how it works?”

“Not really.”

“OK, this is your power cable. This is your I-O cable. It fits on your head like this.” As he spoke, Fleem fitted a stethoscope-like device to my temples. “This knob is the theta gain. This one is the z-axis normalization. This is feedback squelch and this one is the volume. The rocker switch on the back turns it off and on. Got all that?”

“What do I do after I turn it on?”

Fleem looked at me as if I had just asked a master watchmaker what the big hand and the little hand were for. “You talk to it, of course. Users!” he muttered darkly.

“What do I talk to it about?”

“Whatever you want to talk about. That’s what the Brain Box is for. You talk to it and talks to you.”

“If that’s all it does, why is it any better than a therapist, or a witch doctor?”

“Because that isn’t all it does. While you’re talking to it, it reads your mind.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Theta Gain Probes—the things on your head—interpret your brain activity and they correlate what they sense with what you say. They read anger, fear, prevarication, and delusion, and they integrate those responses with your conversation. Using this information, the machine adjusts its answers and its questions. The more you use it, the more accurately it learns to respond to your needs.”

“You mean, that it would eventually become customized to my personality?”

“Exactly so! After a few hours, its neural net simulation will be acclimated to your responses and the Brain Box will customize its advice based on that information.”

What a wonder! Insight no human therapist could hope to match. The gift of the ages for only $495, batteries not included.

The User’s manual was a snap. Plug it in, or use the optional $39.95 battery pack for Therapy-On-The-Go. Adjust the “headphones,” turn up the volume and discuss your pressing concerns with your Confidential Advisor. Earphones an optional extra.

I came up with the campaign’s tag line that first evening:

The advertising copy practically wrote itself:

And if you think the print campaign was impressive, you should have seen the TV spots. An actor dressed as Sigmund Freud drones to a patient on a couch:

“Now at the end of our 437th session, Mr. Smithers, you were telling me about your feelings when your goldfish died.” Suddenly, a lightning bold strikes the floor in front of Dr. Freud and in a flash of light, Confidential Advisor Man appears. He’s dressed in an immaculate three piece pinstripe suit. He carries an alligator attache case.

“This is the twenty-first century, Mr. Smithers,” he says to the disconcerted patient. “Don’t waste your time and money with these horse and buggy methods. I’ll help you get normal at warp speed!” Before the startled patient can say anything, Confidential Advisor Man opens his briefcase and takes out the Classic Advisor Unit. He slips the headphones against Smithers’s temples, presses the “on,” switch and twists the volume dial.

“Go, on Mr. Smithers, tell your Confidential Advisor what’s really bothering you.” Hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, Smithers begins talking to the machine. A look of relaxed satisfaction spreads over his face. Confidential Advisor Man turns to the camera.

“Don’t let life get you down,” he says authoritatively. “For just $495 the Confidential Advisor can make you normal at warp speed!” As we fade out we see Dr. Freud approvingly studying the machine and trying the headset on for size.

Well, the effect of this campaign was startling, I can tell you. Orders poured in. We set up a nationwide distribution network. K-mart was ordering the product by the trainload.

Then Mrs. Thelma Flebitis bought one. I suppose it was inevitable. It had to happen sooner or later. It just turned out to be sooner. Now, the manual was quite clear. It said it right there on page nineteen in ten point type: “For best results, one Confidential Advisor per Advisee.” But she didn’t read that. No, Mrs. Flebitis couldn’t be bothered following the rules. She bought one confidential advisor for her entire family: herself; Willy Ray, who had just gotten out of Juvenile Hall for setting the mailman on fire; Ulla, the fourteen-year-old who had tattooed a likeness of the Abrams A1A tank on her belly; Big Daddy, the author of an unpublished account of the sexual practices of the four alien races he claimed to have studied; and Glimmer Girl, the family’s four-year-old Rottweiler.

Well, I ask you, how could one Advisor handle all those troubled souls at the same time? Just interpreting Glimmer Girl’s barks and whines was enough to tax its powers. The User’s Manual warned them right there on page thirty-two: “Not recommended for pets without the optional Pet-Meter’ attachment.” But did they listen? Did they care?

Within days the machine had suffered a terminal meltdown of its neural net circuits, but not before Willy Ray tried to marry Glimmer Girl, and claiming that Uncle Seth was an outlaw from Alpha Centauri, Big Daddy beaned him with a bowling ball. Personally, I think it was Glimmer Girl who put the poor machine over the edge.

They all sued Xcitement. They claimed that their deviant behavior was caused by the Confidential Advisor. Sheer nonsense, of course, but when did that ever stop a jury? The tabloids had a field day. A terrified populace returned the devices by the trainload. Everyone demanded their money back. Faster than you could say “Bankruptcy Court,” Mr. Slumber was in hiding and I was unemployed, again.

But things could be worse. Tomorrow’s another day. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Everything will be just fine. Why am I so sure? My Confidential Advisor told me so just this morning. And it’s never wrong.

“We’re dead. Circulation is down again this year—this is the lowest it’s been in five years. If this keeps happening, the publisher’s gonna shut us down for sure. How are we gonna get those numbers back up?”