Pablo's Secret

All Pablo had to look forward to was writing Amazon reviews. Everything else, well… the weight-gain powder he’d taken to bulk up had turned him into, in his own words, a “fat blob”. His special cycling underwear hadn’t kept him from feeling pain after two or three hours in the saddle. His ruler broke after two days, his “small” lab coat was WAY too big, and he just didn’t have the patience for the adult coloring book.

He couldn’t find the answers in his science books, especially when his chemistry book was riddled with errors. The self-help books and the detox tea helped some, and he found some pens he really liked. But Pablo still felt like something was missing. Something major. Something vital.

Then one day he was struggling to lug his science textbooks across the campus quad. All that density and weight between those slick textbook covers made them a jiggling, unruly mass of trouble. At last the whole pile tumbled out of his arms. “Damn you,” thought Pablo. “I wish you would spill your incorrect facts all over these paving stones that have been individually sponsored by successful alumni.”

As he gathered the erroneous, heavy books, it struck him: a backpack. That was what Pablo needed. But not just any backpack. It had to be one of the best backpacks he’d ever owned. The quality had to be great. The materials had to be great. It had to be a five-star, all-caps GREAT BACKPACK.

He went to his local backpack store and tried on dozens, with a bricklike laptop from 2002 and his two heaviest books as sample ballast. That one was wrong. This one was wronger. No, not that one either. As the backpack rejects piled up like tomatillo husks, Pablo began to despair… then he felt one caress his shoulders and back like a tender, padded lover. This was the one.

Every compartment of the Fūl Apex backpack was a treasure cave, a horn of plenty, a basket of kisses. Pablo felt as if the nylon were his own skin. It was everything a backpack should be, and yet somehow transcended those two silly syllables, “back” and “pack”. That day, Pablo changed. Everything changed. And Pablo had to tell the world, the best way he knew how: in an Amazon review.