Potty Trainers!

It all started in a board room in Japan. It is a big corporation with presence in almost all spheres of industry. From electronics, automobiles to music. One newly inducted member of the decision making team had finally scraped enough courage to put forward his favorite idea. With a lot of bows and respectful intonation, he convinced the samurais of the company to assign a measly budget almost equal to the annual GDP of Seychelles. For potty trainers.

Off he went scrambling to the vast glass building that housed the R and D section of the organization. There he sought out another young inductee. They sat down and designed a revolutionary new machine. A plastic potty that played music whenever you used it. Initial cost estimates put the production costs at under a dollar and about ten dollars at advertising and publicity. This was good, very good. Initial market surveys indicated that they had a good chance of selling it for not less than $300. That’s about almost a three hundred percent profit. The samurais would be pleased.

When the product was through the development stage, they encountered a small problem. What to use as music for the potty. The R and D guy was a huge fan of an obscure artist, who at one time was so popular that there was scarcely a country which had not heard or hummed his songs. Back to the main office and searched the company’s database for records of the artist’s association with the company. Not surprisingly, he was on the company’s rolls. So a song (which at its time was No.1 in U.S, U.K and other music charts.) was selected and incorporated in the system, which with usual Japanese efficiency had quite good music quality. Even for $1 they built good stuff.

So, as part of the marketing blitz, a young Japanese American was sent off to the artist’s home town to secure his approval. He was sent with a simple directive, get it. He needed no other. So the Artist’s agent was called and a meeting set up. When the idea was proposed, the artist actually exploded. But, the agent knew he wanted the money. So he got him to agree and thus the Potty trainer was actually ready for marketing. Quickly an ad was made with the artist promoting. The rationale being that the fans who had listened to him would now be old enough to have young children needing potty training.

The product was a huge success. Millions and millions of potty trainers were sold in the US. Pretty soon if your child was not potty trained on this potty trainer, he could not be admitted to a school, the neighbor’s child’s birthday party or in to any restaurant, airplane or public place. Soon, there was an ancillary business of nannies who certified the presence of potty trainers in homes and vouched for the habits of their young charges.

It became so huge that soon there was a backlash against it. The people oppressed by the frequent price revisions and legislations denying the pottily underprivileged access to schools and library rioted on the streets. The government finding it cheaper to pass legislation to restrict potty trainers than fighting its own public, soon passed a bill. The samurai, shrugged and went back to counting his trillions in peace.

Pretty soon the product passed out of the minds of the people and normal ways of teaching toilet habits to children resumed. In the mean time, with the money accrued by endorsing the trainer, the artist hired a great new song writer and PR company. His fame rocketed. For another fifteen years he went on making music, before retiring and counting his millions in peace. With a little PR and money, he soon got MTV to give him a life time achievement award.

The day arrived, the award ceremony was the largest yet. About a 100,000 teens were there in the stadium, chanting and dancing and generally enjoying the show. At the end of it all, when it was announced that the Life Time award went to the artist, they all started wildly calling, “Song, Song, Song”

The artist, pleased as punch, decided to sing his most popular song ever. He signaled to his team, (kept ready for just this contingency) and the opening bars of the song started. There was a stunned silence, the artist pleased at the reception he was getting, launched into the song with full gusto. Soon, the stadium was filled with sounds of zippers and rustling cloth, when the artist opened his eyes, he saw a 100,000 teens showing their training right then and there.