Tag: pyramid schemes

Artificial Stupidity

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

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.

Beanefits of Being Morons

~ Jen ~ 3 Comments

Doris Krabalsky is bored waiting in her bed for her meal and medication. Who knew staying in the hospital could be so boring? Doris decides to go for a walk to the nice skin cancer patient she met earlier in the day.

“I have the perfect solution for you.”

“Is it the stinky pink drink?” the lady asks?

“No, I drank that for four years.” Doris replies.

“I am not using essential snake oils because I am smell-sensitive,” the elderly lady replies.

“Nope.”

Doris’ nurse walks in. “What is going on here? Patients are not supposed to go into other patients’ rooms. You all signed and initialed an agreement when you got here.”

“She was just telling me about a new treatment for my skin cancer.”

“Oh no, selling stuff is strictly prohibited here.”

“I am not selling, I am recommending.”

“Recommending? Only licensed medical providers are allowed to do that here, per your agreement Doris. Now you broke three rules. Three strikes, you are out. I am afraid we will have to release you.”

“Waaaaah! What about my bum knee?” Doris growled.

“Oh, ma’am your pain was not that bad anyway. I will be back shortly with your discharge papers. Are you calling for a ride home or shall we have Security escort you?”

“Hrrmph.”

Five hours later, the Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky walks in the room after leaving her home undeneath the bridge.

“Bustin’ outta here?”

“They are sending me home too soon,” Doris sighs to Leona.

“You say? How so?”

“They told me not to suggest our fine products to other patients.” Doris says to Leona.

“Oh, you should see these magic beans!”

“I have tooted enough, Leona.”

“No Doris, magical beans, not musical.”

The two sisters head out after Doris signs her discharge sheet.

Doris walks into her home and Leona meets her in the den.

Leona opens up a small paper bag and pulls out a handful of dried beans.

“You see, Doris, these are not any beans. They are magic beans.”

“How are they magical?” Doris asks her sister.

“They can make us lettuce.”

The two sisters look each other in the eye and grin.

“By convincing our customers that these beans I bought at the grocery store they have special health benefits which they do not, and persuading them to pay more than they need, we can make a lot of green!” Leona tells an intrigued Doris.

Doris and Leona get busy setting up a Fakebook page. Since Pat Splatt has left town for South Africa and is unreachable, the Krabalsky sisters develop a marketing plan on Utube.

“Since Grammarlee did so well advertising their overpriced Autocorrect program before every video, I thought we could make an even longer commercial with even more annoying music and sound effects!” Leona tells Doris.

“Let’s do it. Add a slide whistle, boom clappity music and a vuvuzela.”

“Done,” Leona tells Doris, feeling accomplished.

Emails come in and so does money. Beans go out. As the word gets out, so do more beans.

“Soon we will have to hire a bean counter!” Doris jokes to Leona.

“Ding!”

“Ahhh, we got our first review. Hopefully it will not be our last!” Doris tells a nearby Leona.

“These beans did not work at all. I thought these were magical and I did not feel a thing. I did not see a thing! Not recommended!”

“Ding!”

“I planted these magic beans and my beanstalk did not lead me to find a giant. I want my money back!”

“Ding!”

“I ate these musical beans I did not even toot even once. What a ripoff!”

Doris and Leona log onto Welp to read their reviews and they are even worse. Every customer wants their money back and contacts the duo for a refund.

“What do we do now, Doris?”

“I guess our product is a ‘has-bean’.”

Doris Krabalsky Peddles Her Crap

~ Jen ~ 2 Comments
A full-color cartoon of an elderly woman sitting at her computer. Text: Hey hun. I sell Prymerica. Tell a friend (or else I will.)

Doris Krabalsky wants to be a real bossbabe. This snake-oily mama from Kankakee slides emojis and thinly veiled spam into inboxes all over Fakebook, feigning her concern and admiration for the people whom she calls “hun.”

MoronicArts Classics: I Do Not Like Spam

~ Jen ~ 3 Comments
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“I’m With Stupid” reads the graphic tee Leona Krabalsky wears to the Kankakee job fair. She along with her younger sister, Doris, are busy manning their booth.

“I hope we sell truckloads of these here essential snake oils, you oily mama!” Leona slyly says as she slaps her sister on the arm.

“I hope we sell lots of these here business ops too. After all a sucker is born every minute! But don’t tell them that, Bossbabe! Shhhh.” Doris whispers in Leona’s ear.

The day is almost over and the ladies have yet to make a single sale. Tired, hangry and frustrated, Leona grabs her pack of unfiltered smokes and gets ready to head out to burn one. A 40-something gent with long, straggly, dark brown hair and round, blue, plastic glasses approaches the booth. Leona hides her cigarettes, dons her cheesiest grin and locks eyes with the only person who approached the booth all day.

“How may we improve your life today?” Leona says with a huge, fake smile.

“Hi. I am Pat Splatt. Nice to meet you” he says as he tightly shakes Doris’s hand, and clasps his left hand over both hands.

“Our essential oils can change your life.” Doris says to Pat.

“Can they get me la-…dies?” Pat giggles.

“They sure can!” Doris says with a smile.

“All right!” Pat pumps his fists.

“We have patchouli, try this out, I bet you will love it.” Doris tries to persuade Pat.

“And we can make you rich! Let me tell you about our business opportunity!” Leona chines in.

“And I can make you richer!” Pat exclaims.

“How so?” Leona asks quizzically, finger to her lip.

“I can make sure your oils and opportunities are known by every person with an email address!” Pat says with a smile.

“I tell you what, I will give you that a set of oils in exchange for you marketing our stuff.”

“Deal.” Pat says and the three exchange handshakes.

The next day, Pat goes down to his basement and fires up his email harvester, stealing massive numbers of addresses across the Internet. After loading the addresses, he imports them to his Spam-o-Matic 2000 program.

“I do not like spam. But I do not care. It makes me money and gets me free stuff” Pat says to himself as he clicks the “Send Spam” button.

Over a billion emails spew out Pat’s basement server to unsuspecting people all over the world, advertising Leona and Doris’s unsolicited snake oils and pyramid schemes. Pat kicks back in his dark basement and falls asleep after eating a box of cheese doodles and drinking an entire bottle of pop straight from its two liter bottle.

Meanwhile, Doris and Leona are getting flooded with angry emails and calls.

“Take me off your rotten list!” states one message.

“Stop spamming me! I hate this crap!” writes another.

“Who is this? You’re a moron! There is a special place in Hell for people who send out junk emails!” shouts a third.

Doris Krabalsky and Damien Hurlbutt arrive at Hell’s in-processing line, both wanting to take over.

Leona and Doris decide they have enough of the thousands of messages and change their contact info.

“That’s a bust. I guess we will have to try telemarketing next,” Leona says to Doris.

“Naaaw, I will go back to selling this stuff on the street like I did before…” Doris snickers and grins.

Sirens are heard in the background and flashing lights are seen. What was that about selling on the street? The world may never know.

Doris Krabalsky Wanna Buy an Oil 2

MoronicArts Classics: Sybil Sells Snake Oil on the Side?

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Sybil will do anything to make a buck. Spotting an ad for an MLM company, she gives it a go. “If the girls at Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) can sell essential oils, I can do it too, only better!” Sybil tells herself. “There is a sucker born every minute.”

Wanting to outdo the competition, Sybil creates her own oil to sell. “Essential Snake Oil” Sybil dubs her new concoction, and she labels it “made from real snakes.”


What Sybil does not tell plan to tell her potential customers, is that her product contains no snake content at all. It is made from 100% Canola oil.


“I cannot wait to rip people off! With all the money I make, I can buy lots of dog food for dinner! Yum!” Sybil plots in her head.


The following day, Sybil heads to the cheapest grocery store in Bourbonnais to get canola oil. Customers looking for the best deal from nearby Manteno and Sybil’s hometown Kankakee look puzzled as a conniving Sybil fills her cart with gallons and gallons of canola.


As Sybil approaches the cashier with her cart, she can barely move, it is so heavy.


Sybil loads her stash onto the conveyor belt, and the clerk immediately gives Sybil the stinkeye. “You are sure buying a lot of oil there, girl! Are you frying up a bunch of fish?” The clerk giggles, unaware of the scheme Sybil is trying to cook up.

“Okay, ma’am, that will be $413.83.”


Sybil gets out her Wally Green’s credit card.


A few uncomfortable seconds pass, which seem like hours in Sybil’s mind.


“What is the matter?” gasps Sybil.


“Declined.”


Sybil’s heart sinks.


“This cannot be. Run it again!” Sybil snips.


The clerk ran the card two more times.


“Declined.”


“Get me your manager!” Sybil screams.


“I am the store manager and owner.”


“Why was my card declined?” Sybil asks defensively.


“NSF – Insufficient Funds. Pretty bad for a bill collector like you. There was a time I was down and out and you called my house relentlessly, usually at dinner time. I could not afford to make my payments because you doubled the amount you would accept. Now you are broke. What did you need all that oil for any way? Are you you going to oil a snake or something?”


Sybil backs away with her head down and slowly heads out the door, and to her home alone, in Kankakee.

Hobbies Are Important

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

“Excuse me Miss. I have something important to tell you.”

The 4’6″ Kankakee pyramid-schemer Doris Krabalsky stares down 5’11”, athletic Gothic Diana Ross who is minding her own business, drinking iced coffee at a table across the café.

“Yeah…no”

“There’s a cure for that,” Doris verbally spams Diana as she rubs her arms to suggest something was “wrong” with the medium-skinned singer’s limbs.

“These are tattoos, you idiot.”

The angered leader of the Midnight Supremes pauses and then delivers some important information to Doris.

“There is a cure for nosiness. It is called getting a hobby.”

The scared fool Doris leaves the café in silence, just in time to avoid getting a knuckle-sandwich delivered straight to her pie-hole, courtesy of Diana.

A CRASS Message

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A visitor to the official Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) page on Facebook was such a fan, they decided to act just like Kankakee pyramid schemers Leona and Doris Krabalsky!

Spam Does Not Pay

~ Jen ~ 1 Comment

“Aw, man. I have these diet coffee beans for sale and nobody wants to buy them. All I get are panhandlers asking for money and free coffee. Got any ideas, Pat?” Kankakee street schemer Doris Krabalsky asks local spammer, Pat Splatt.

“Let me introduce your idea on social media! I have a proven strategy that will certainly win for both of us!”

“This bossbabe is in to win it!”

“I will get cookin”. Pat logs on Instaphoto and begins to look for accounts with thousands of followers or more.

“Look at this account. Lots of videos, but the most liked ones are so weird. The hot videos not so much. Oh, look at this account! Sterling Heights with no culture. I will keep looking” Pat says at a local cafe, as he combs the accounts to target with messages like this:

“Diet coffee colon cleanse – new product to promote gut health! No calories! Ask me how!”

Pat can be heard on the phone with Doris. As Pat puts his phone on speakerphone, a cafe customer catches on to what he is doing and plays the Monty Python Spam song out loud from her tablet. “Where are you?” Doris asks Pat.

“I plan on making big money here. We can make lots together. I can hire people, get them credit and then fire them, not planning on keeping them anyway.” Doris and Pat share a chortle.

Pat looks for Instaccounts to spam inbetween his looking at girls on the dating site Tindling. “She’s not too hot. Swipe left. Ooh look at this Insta account. It has 100k followers.” Pat calls people who did not reply back to his oodles of spams ableist slurs and homophobic slurs as insults. Doris thinks it is funny. The cafe patrons share dirty looks aimed in his direction.

Pat’s Sixerr and Paybuddy accounts keep getting declined. Pat cannot seem to figure out why. He thinks the internet is for spam and that he should be able to help his customers make money under his influence over people.

“It is all good. Don’t worry. It will all work, Doris. Gotta run.”

Pat checks his Instaphoto account. A message pops up: “your account has been terminated for illegal activity.”

“Oh crap! I will just create another account.”

Pat logs onto Instaphoto. “Please enter a credit card.”

Pat tries all his cards. Declined.

The wheel starts spinning. He cannot log on. A young lady approaches him.

“Can I get you something to eat?”

“No.”

“Drink, then?”

“No.”

“We have detected via our IP that you have been perfoming illegal activity. The police are on their way.” The barista informs Pat.

“You, you WOMAN!”

“No use trying to leave, our nice tall ladies guarding the door will stop you. Oh good, police came fast! Yayyyyyy!” The barista claps her hands and the entire cafe erupts in laughter and applause, except for Pat Splatt.

Wanna Buy An Oil?

~ Jen ~ Leave a comment

Doris Krabalsky is Kankakee town troll Leona Krabalsky’s younger sister who sells essential snake oils, investments you can sell your friends, stinky pink drinks, and other MLM products on the streets. Meet her at midnight. Or look for her ice cream…van.

Doris Krabalsky Wanna Buy an Oil 2

Doris Is Ancient and She Drives An Ice Cream Van

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Kankakee pyramid schemer Doris Krabalsky parks her van at a Wally World hoping to trick hungry kids and their parents into buying ice cream from her MLMmobile. Parents get mad because their kids were screaming for ice cream, not leggings. Doris fails to earn a single penny, so she broadcasts her ads on shortwave radio instead.

Needless to say, The Lincolnshire Poacher only brought Doris more trouble.

Justified!