Fail To See The A-Mew-sing Side
(I’m working for a monthly glossy magazine. My boss calls me into his office towards the end of the day.)
Boss: “Hey! Come look at this! This is outrageous! We have to write about this!”
(He shows me his computer screen. Someone has sent him a link to a well-known joke site claiming to show you how to customize cats by having them grow up in glass jars, along with an e-mail claiming this is becoming fashion in New York and Tokyo.)
Me: “Yeah. That’s a good joke site.”
Boss: “A JOKE? You think doing this to poor innocent cats is a JOKE?”
Me: “… Uh, sorry. But nobody’s doing that to any cats. The site itself is a joke. It’s fake.”
Boss: “But there are pictures! Look!”
Me: “They’re Photoshopped.”
Boss: “What?”
Me: “Photoshopped. You know; the software you pay our image editor to use?”
Boss: “I know what Photoshop is, but you can’t just create images of things that don’t exist!”
Me: “I’m sorry, but sure you can.”
(I quickly google a few Photoshop contests and show my boss a photo of a hummingbird/rhino hybrid.)
Me: “See?”
Boss: “Well… but it says here it’s the latest trend in New York!”
Me: “Think about it. If that were true, wouldn’t you have heard about it somewhere else?”
Boss: “Maybe… but…”
Me: “It’s a joke site. If we write about it, people will laugh at us.”
Coworker: *entering the office* “What’s a joke site?”
Boss: “[Name Of Site].”
Coworker: “Oh, no. It’s true. I talked to a Chinese guy, and he confirmed it.”
Boss: *to me* “See?”
Me: “Hey, look, it’s five o’clock. I’m going home…”
(Imagine my surprise when the magazine went bankrupt shortly afterward.)
