We're all grateful to Sony because of the swell job it has done of promoting the Sony PlayStation 2, which is the most important advance in entertainment technology since Tickle Me Elmo. This thing is amazing: It can play video games! It can play movies! It can make jerky! It can perform laser eyeball surgery in your family room!
Sony spent millions of dollars hyping the PlayStation 2, thus creating a huge demand. Every child in America MUST get one of these things for Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or Atheist Children Get Presents Day. Children who DON'T get one will be bitterly disappointed.
To meet the demand it created, Sony set up the PlayStation 2 manufacturing facility, which is located in a one-car garage in suburban Tokyo. There, the PlayStation 2 work force, which consists of 92-year-old Mr. Wokohito Mumuwama and his 89-year-old wife, Blanche, have been making PlayStation 2 units as fast as they can, considering the fact that they must assemble all 123,972 parts by hand, and their candles keep blowing out. Nevertheless the Mumuwamas have been cranking out these babies at the rate of nearly one per month, for a total of 11 so far, of which eight failed quality-control tests because of defects such as spiders, denture adhesive on the microchips, etc.
So the bottom line is that only three functioning PlayStation 2 units have actually been made, and two of these were stolen during shipment. As a result, 37 million parents were competing for the one remaining unit, which was purchased by 24-year-old video-game enthusiast Trevor Beanhonker, who got it, in a heartwarming holiday story, by strapping explosives to his chest.
The rest of us are out of luck. We will have to explain to our children, in our most soothing Mr. Rogers voices, that Santa did not bring them a PlayStation 2 this year, but that this does NOT mean they have been bad! It just means that Santa hates them.
So again I say: Thanks, Sony! Way to plan! Maybe you could use the same kind of marketing expertise to open a chain of restaurants: Each one could have 50 tables, 15 waiters, five chefs, an extensive menu, and one lone packet of saltines.
Next: The real meaning of Christmas...
