Artificial Stupidity

Kankakee pyramid-scheme peddlers Doris and Leona Krabalsky are tired of standing on street corners and bugging hospital patients by pushing their useless woo oils, moldy-buttery-softlined-leggings and investments you can re-sell to your friends out of their trenchcoats.

“We are getting old and living on a fixed income. Our knees are wobbly, our hair is grey–“

“We are a retail store and not allowed to alter prices,” floor clerk Robbie Hurlbutt replies.

“Wait till you get to our age, sonny. You should respect your elders!”

“OK Karens!”

Not happy with their collective egoes once again deflated, the sinister sisters walk about the store.

“Hey, what’s this? My…wail-eee.”

“Miami?”

“My…my…hey would ya look at this! It might pert near dang work!”

The bumbling bullies read the box:

“Are your sales running flatulent? Get MyW-AI-LY, a degenerative-AI program to automatically poop out marketing schemes to sell anything you want, even a half-eaten sandwich! We don’t care what it is. Pivot, and walk that passive sidestream income over by doing almost nothing. Our state of the art Artificial Imbecilics will match up your target audiences using our potential spyware with the things YOU insist THEY must have! Forget those influencers! They’re too expensive and boring. Designed by none other than that wannabe Kankakee ladies’ man himself, the eye in this sky is Mr. Wally Green. He says this product will change your life, he uses it too! It’s his newest invention — and it’s on sale. Feel the power…of the funneling steamed hams backwashing income straight into the mouths of bossbabes like you! Never ruin your roast again! This product description was artificially genrated by MyW-AI-LY.”

“Why hire humans to sell our leftovers when we can hire Roy Batty to do it instead?” Doris Krablasky asks her sister Leona.

“I dunno, I kinda like that Leon guy better. He reminds me of myself!” The two shysters share a giggle while they plot their evil plans.

“Buy one get one half off, but never free. Why not? One for your computer and one for mine, a matching set. Awwwww, how cute. It even comes with a CrapApp and it matches our decor!”

The octogenerians take their newly found program to their basement and try their best to run the software on their Commodore 64, to no avail.

“Do I type R-U-N and then return?”

“No, it says press any key.”

“Where’s the ANY key?”

The forgetful duo call up their old buddy Pat Splatt.

“Yo, it’s Pat.”

“Hey hun!”

“Yes, lady, what must I do ya fer?”

“I got this program I need you to run.”

“I’m busy finishing up a project”

“I need unfettered access to this program right now so I can start making big bucks.”

“No Whammys?”

“Uhh no, hun.”

“I love money, benjamins are my cuddle buddies. I’ll be right over.”

Mr. Splatt drives the Patmobile over to the small geodesic pyramid-shaped domain shared by the pyramid-plan-peddling sisters, installs it on their Winduhs laptop that they happened to get free after buying a washer-dryer set some time back.

“Just set up the prompts, let the bot do the work, you sit around the clock and collect the bucks — plus my 20 per cent.”

“No, WRONG, Pat you get only 10 per cent.”

“OK, make it 50. I’m giving an offer you can’t refuse.”

The ladies get busy hunting-and-pecking, letting the artificial stupidity carry out their very human shenanigans, which people begin to notice.

SUBJECT: “Open up for your new health insurance benefit!”

“ I can sure use the money” Bernadette Moran Cacca thinks aloud as she reads the subject line while pinching a loaf, then clicks to open the email.

“Weight loss? What the heck? Yeah…no!”

SUBJECT: “Get $5 haircuts with the device Nobody wants you to see! Open now!”

“What on Earth would I do with this vacuum-hose thingamajig? I’m bald!” Barry Reynolds screams at his phone, then slams it down on the hard concrete floor, smashing it to bits.

SUBJECT: “Make beaucoup bucks with this one simple trick! Slots open now!”

“We all have jobs, thank you, miss Krabalsky…” Gothic Diana Ross deadpans in her dark bedroom, decorated with band posters, black hanging beads and the text “IN GOTH WE TRUST.” She dims the lights, then deletes the thinly veiled canned commercial content from her cell.

The Krabalksys hold a meeting.

“I got home as soon as I could. I got done chased by them cops again from underneath the 57 exchange while trying to make a sale. “

“It’s not working.”

“Why are we losing money again? I thought we were supposed to get large gains this time! We cut out the middle-man!”

“Call up that nice boy Pat. He knows what to do.”

Leona picks up her flip-phone, slowly dials the chunky, illuminated numerals.

“This is Patrick Oswald Splatt.”

“Hi hun, we have a problem.”

“Leave a message after the bleep and—“

“Oh, another one of those machines again. I hate machines. They ruin everything! They ruin everything, everything, everything! Back in our days we all shared a phone, the entire block only had one television, and no-one had a computer!”

The sisters take turns pestering Pat. After they spend 30 minutes ringing his phone off its invisible hook, Mr. Splatt picks it up.

“I am in the washroom taking a crap! Can ya call me back?”

“Oh, I’ll only take a minute with this one very simple question.”

“No minutes left, you ran out.”

“Huh?”

“You owe me my consult fee plus additional charges for expediting your non-emergency. Pay up or else!”

Then Pat flushes.

“Hello! Hello! Where are you? Is it snowing in there? What’s that noise? Your TV on the fritz? It’s making this weird beeping sound. Is that ya microwave?” the sisters keep shouting into the void on a recursive loop.

“I think it’s broken. Imma gonna lie down after playing some Solitaire.”

Leona lays down the cards onto her wooden desk and begins to play, while Doris falls fast alseep on her polyester, dusty-rose-patterned sofa, sawing not only wood but an entire forest.