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.)