I’ll put together a team of experts: the foremost zoologist in the world, the number one psychoanalyst, the most advanced child psychologist, the fittest evolutionary biologist and I suppose, even I — a pioneer for the greater good, oblivious to the businesspersons’ adage that “the proof is in the profit” — even I must admit, we’ll need a marketing type or some kind of a businessperson. The expedition shall balloon to a great cost in a very short period of time and we’ll need some manner of business model if we’re to survive.
Group chemistry will be of upmost importance; we shall need to spend much time in very close proximity. Not overly close, but close. If the gang doesn’t get along, the profits will suffer. If it were up to me, group chemistry would be at the bottom, but it is a means to an end — an important end that will change our culture much for the better. And if the gang has that special type of chemistry only seen in the movies, maybe one day, once we’ve really changed the world, someone might make a movie about us! And they’ll give us a snappy nickname, like “The Best Gang” or something to that effect. That reminds me: we’re going to need a website.
We’ll have to do something with patents, I know. Maybe we’ll patent the idea, or the voyage. Or perhaps we can simply wait and patent the results once we have them in the ship’s hold. Whatever the case may be, I’m willing to bet I’ll need to look into patenting regulations, and I’m assuming I’ll need to do it sooner than I might currently assume.
Do you need to be certified to create a patent? I wonder if we could just have one of our other foremost experts draw up the patent? Maybe we can just prepare it and mail it off to the patenting office and they take care of the rest. Whatever the case may be we’ll need some kind of a patent at some point, and it is something I will most likely need to tackle soon.
It might even help to have someone knowledgeable in the field of patenting on the team, with us the whole way. Is there a world’s foremost patent officer? If not, we can really just use anyone who’s certified. It might work out well. Every movie gang has to have a “straight man,” a sort of comic relief character that gets picked on by the more important characters.
And once all of that is taken care of, and the patent slip is in hand, or pending, or, at the very least, being looked after by an officer, we’ll depart early on in the morning. Yes, of course it would be nice to take a leisurely brunch before heading off to the airport, but I’m thinking that, in all likelihood, we’ll have to stop over in Vancouver before heading off to Cairns, and from Cairns we will need to take a ship to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, and if we’re to guarantee ourselves a fair shot at catching a ship we’ll need to arrive first thing in the morning. With any luck we’ll find a way to hitch a ride on a garbage ship or some fashion of cargo freighter. I think there was a movie with that. Romantic, isn’t it? The team, of course, won’t like it, but it looks like that’s just how it will have to play out. I don’t like to leave these things to chance, but all the money will be gone. Obviously, our trip back home will be contingent upon the success of the expedition and the attractiveness of our product, but such success is a given — as long as this patenting question gets answered as soon as possible. Where does one send a patent application? What does one include with it? Is there a form of some sort? And how long does it take? Imagine, waiting it out in the mountains of Papua New Guinea while some bureaucrat in a government office works his or her way through a stack of paperwork, checking protocol and penciling checkmarks into checkmark boxes.
It makes me sick, in a manner of speaking. Not literally, of course. But the thought that we scientists, if we’re to reimburse our important research, are forced to jump through these bureaucratic hoops for weeks at a time. Businesspeople support these systems only because they know how to use them. But we innovators of science, we changers of the world, we progressive squad of thinkers who prefer to lie buoyant and peaceful above this depthless plane of lifelessly flat hoops and hurdles, we have to watch as our ideas are neutered by teams of whistle-nosed, clammy-palmed officials. One after the other, they coolly stack our sweat-worn forms, rough from hours puzzling out the answers which we assume could soothe those passionless administrators’ desire for order. They clap the creased ends of the stack against their desk before laying them flat. They put on reading glasses with a sigh, and start scanning — not with intrigue, but with a calm eye for discrepancy. Little do they know of those torrents of fear that wash over us innocent scientists as we’re scooped up like helpless pups into this lifeless world of paperwork. We sit caged and waiting while this sickening society of pencil pushers tries to discern what our ideas could turn out to be if released.
We’re meant to be in the field, making the world better!
My apologies; years of “denied” and “product recall” get my nerves up with each new product. Luckily, with this new expedition I can entirely avoid the “product registration” process. The product was already designed and built by old Mother Nature. I just need to get a patent, but it still makes me nervous.
We must leave as soon as possible. We’ve all seen the reports of strange and wonderful new species popping up all over the insides of the extinct volcanoes of Papua New Guinea. We’ve all considered the novelty of thumb-sized parrots and the amusement of cat-sized rats. The team who discovered these wonders was on an information-gathering voyage, and luckily they took no specimens for breeding.
You know, I’ll bet we can select a patent officer from a pool. There’s probably a place where you can go to choose the patent officer that’s appropriate to your needs. That’s what we can do; we’ll pick a patent officer and he or she will become the world’s foremost patent officer for our own gang. It will merely become a matter of caring for and nurturing a relationship with our new patent officer. If we use flattery and treats, the officer shall truly bond with our team and our goals.
We’ll take our officer with us to Papua New Guinea, where the ecosystem will be flourishing with life, much of which as yet undiscovered. Of course there are those cat-sized rats that were in the news, but imagine what else might be around. Imagine: rabbit-sized cats! Cat-sized rabbits! Rat-sized rabbits! Rabbit-sized rats! Rabbit-shaped parrots! Parrot-sized hats! Bat-shaped cats! Gnat-sized parrots, and what have you.
We shall discover the world’s best new pets, bring a selection back to North America with us and build a new empire of pet sales. The industry we shall take over will not be the one populated by exotic pets like parrots and hedgehogs. No, we will be usurping the throne of an industry dominated by flea treatment for dogs and cats. We will utilize slogans like “the new man’s-best-friend” and “cuter than a kitten.” We will soon be the ones plastered over the covers of such magazines as Fortune and Business Weekly. We’ll not simply take over the helm of the North American pet industry; we’ll make all those business scum look like children. I’ve been disqualified and robbed of my ideas too many times to let this one fail. You’ll all see. Just wait.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the exciting conclusion of “Pets! The Miniseries.”