They Live... Without Standards

Nada stood in the parking lot, contemplating his next move. At that moment, two employees exited the office building. They were chatting about where to eat lunch and nearly jumped when they looked up and saw Nada’s lumbering form.

“Whoa, ha! You scared us buddy,” said one of them. “Cool shades, though. Anything we can help you with?”

“I’m here,” said Nada, “to kick ass and chew bubble gum, but I am all out of bubble gum.”

“That’s no problem at all,” the other employee said. “We can hook you up.”

“What?” Nada said.

“We got gum inside,” said the first employee.

“I hope you don’t mind if it’s caffeinated,” said the second employee.

“And that the texture is a little gritty,” said the first employee.

“Honestly, they overstated the chemical aftertaste on the forums, if you ask me,” said the second employee. “It’s not so bad.”

“What flavor you want? Blood orange is probably the best,” said the first employee.

“That being a relative term,” said the second employee.

“I don’t actually want any gum,” Nada said.

“Then why’d you mention it?” the first employee said.

“Now that I think of it,” said the second employee, “it is a little weird. Like, you could chew bubble gum at home. Why’d you come here?”

“I came to your office,” Nada said, “to expose you. These sunglasses? They show me the truth. And when I looked at your site with them on, I saw it for what it really is. Where the logo should be, there was only a casual exclamation of boredom. And on the screen was a dumb product that copy openly mocked.”

“Uh, that’s not your sunglasses, buddy,” said the first employee.

“Yeah, that’s just what we do,” said the second employee.

“Really? You think I’m going to fall for that?” Nada said. “I’m supposed to believe that you just openly admit your own mediocrity? That you don’t hide your faults?”

“Yeah,” said the first employee.

“That’s just the fact of it,” said the second employee.

“Fine, you want to play this game? Let’s play.” Nada said. “Your shirts, what do they say to you?”

The two employees looked down. They were nearly the same design, only slightly different. “‘Meh,’” they both said.

“Oh, yeah? Well, to my more informed eyes, they say, ‘Meh.’” Nada paused. “Wait, they really just say, ‘Meh’?”

“If you don’t believe us,” said the first employee, “take off your sunglasses.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Nada said. He tore the pair from his face. The shirts looked the same. One of the employee’s pulled up the site on his phone: it too read Meh at the top.

“Dammit!” Nada said. “You were right. These sunglasses are bogus. They don’t show the truth. They’re basically just normal sunglasses. And what’s worse, I’ve got a warehouse full of thousands of them that I planned to distribute in order to spark the revolution.”

The two Meh employees glanced at each other.

“What you’re telling us is,” the first one said, “you got a product that still sorta works but doesn’t do exactly what it’s supposed to?”

“Yeah,” said Nada.

“We might be able to help you unload those,” said the second employee.