I thought I had discovered a magic tooth-paste dispenser. During the Fringe my wife wanted to throw one of those new fangled pump dispensers away because it wasn't really working properly. But mindful of the future of the planet and unnecessary waste and the fact that these things cost about £3 each - they have really been able to ramp up the price because of the futuristic "no-mess" (actually still make plenty of mess) "no drying up of the end of the toothpaste" (again a false claim)system- I carried on using it. For a while I just used the end of my toothbrush to push the bottom of the dispenser from within, but then I realised that if you really held the button down eventually a small amount of toothpaste would come out. The tube was over half used and I did not anticipate it lasting til the end of the Fringe, but I ended up bringing it home with me and using it for almost another two months. By the end of September I expected every squeeze to be the last, but somehow every time more toothpaste would appear from the red nozzle. By the time I had got a fortnight into October the only possible explanation was that this dispenser was enchanted, perhaps by a genie who pooed toothpaste. If I had the patience to keep pushing the button and gathered up all the tiny amounts of toothpaste that seeped out then I might be able to provide toothpaste for every tooth on this planet, both human and animal. Though really only if they were prepared to come to my house each day and collect the toothpaste before it dried out. I was already working out the feasibility of the plan. If I could produce one petit pois sized portion every five seconds (which seemed to be the rate) and it took three such portions to give enough toothpaste to clean the teeth of an average human (a mouse or small mammal would probably only need a half a portion, an elephant might need ten or twenty if you had to do the tusks as well) then I could provide toothpaste for four humans a minute, or 240 humans an hour or 5760 humans a day (though working eight hour shifts I would require two employess to assist). If people were prepared to only clean their teeth once every two days then I could provide toothpaste for over 10,000 people for the rest of their lives. It's not quite everyone in the world, though if I could make them do with one petis pois of toothpaste then that would triple the numbers and come much closer to providing toothpaste for all humanity. I'd just forget about the animals. That was a dumb idea. Animals wouldn't pay for the service.
If I charged them £3 a month for this service I could clear over £360,000 a year. I reckon I could get away with paying my two helpers £20K per annum - in fact I might even employ a third person to do my shift and then just sit back and enjoy £300,000 a year for just sitting on my arse, as long as the magic toothpaste dispenser kept on dispensing its tiny pellets of toothpaste. And if I set up similare schemes in other countries with non-magic toothpaste dispensers I could offset my UK profits against the losses there and end up paying no tax. Genius.
To be honest that's probably why I haven't been that motivated with my script writing work recently. Why put in all that effort when I have the enchanted toothpaste shitting genie in my thrall?
Hubris, they name is Herring.
For today finally, on the day I opened for business with 10,000 people queuing up the road for their turn, the dispenser dispensed two super tiny petit pois sized pellets of toothpaste and then, no matter how hard I pressed, nothing else would come out. My customers sloped off home annoyed and asking for their money back. The magic was broken. But surely only because I was greedy enough to try and turn this magical thing into profit. The toothpaste shitting genie had taught me a valuable lesson - don't ruin something magical by trying to make money from it. I intend to write a best-selling book about that lesson that I have learned.
Have I learned nothing?
