The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius

by David Thorne

Although fully intending to do the logo, I had somehow instead spent the previous week on a knitting forum, under the guise of “Edna,” a seventy-eight-year-old woman with fourteen grandchildren, making friends and exchanging tips before declaring that I could “hear someone breaking in downstairs,” then logging off forever, giving them something more interesting to discuss than fractional stitches and menopause.

As I entered the shower and was soaking and lathering my hair with shampoo, my phone rang for the fifth time. As I reached out of the shower to answer it, I slipped, fell, and slammed my face, mouth first, into the sink, knocking out two teeth and cracking another. Through the pain, which was exactly like having my teeth knocked out with a porcelain sink, I stemmed the blood with a Mr. Men T-shirt shoved into my mouth while searching for a dentist online.

While I was waiting, an elderly man wearing a Salvation Army uniform asked me if I was all right and needed a place to stay, which I suppose was nice, but I was not in the mood for his crap at that moment and informed him of such.

As an alternative to a career requiring high academic achievement, I chose one requiring none at all.

Good morning students. My name is Thomas, and I have driven this extraordinary distance from the nice suburbs to speak to you today despite the fact that I am not being paid to do so and it doesn’t count as part of my community service.

It has been a long time since I was in a school environment, and it brings back many memories—some fond, some painful. For many years I was called cruel names because of the size of my head, and rocks were thrown at me as I crossed the schoolyard due to being an easy target. Thankfully, Mrs. Carter was eventually transferred to teach English at a different school, and the bullying stopped. It was obvious from the poor grade she gave me for my essay—about a space teacher who deals with racial issues when he transfers to a school on the planet Beta-5—titled “To sir, with the only emotional responses that can be generated by a species that has

evolved in a methane atmosphere seventy times the pressure of Earth’s,” that her hostility masked a burning jealousy of my superior writing abilities, and I explained this to her on several occasions. A short time later, the replacement English teacher, Mr. Amorelli, asked me to stay back after class to discuss my grades but instead made me stand on a desk, undress slowly, and dance in a circular motion. At first I w...

And that is what graphic design and branding is about. When the client asks you to fit eighteen pages of text onto a single-sided A4 flyer and increase the type size to twelve point, simply find your special place and dance. It doesn’t matter if there is no music; create...

tightly drawn string and a cardboard box. A stick with bottle tops nailed to it does not count as a musical instr...

And here’s a PowerPoint presentation . . .

Hello boys and girls. (Wave. With both hands so those at the back can see you.) My name is Thomas, and I drove here

in a motor car. Once upon a time, there was an evil wizard who tried to cast a spell on a young boy. Luckily, the young boy was able to defeat the evil wizard by doing a magical spinning dance. Without the use of bottle tops nailed to a stick. And that is what graphic design and branding is about: spinning really fast. (Demonstrate.) And here’s a PowerPoint presentation . . .

All right, but going by the number of client proposals that have been sent out in the last six months, it has been a while since you have actually written anything.

The reason no client proposals have gone out lately is due to the global

financial crisis. My job is hard enough without you being a dickhead when I ask you to write one fucking opening speech.

Thank you for explaining that the several hours of your day spent playing online poker is a direct result of the weak U.S. dollar.

Although encouragement, rather than reprimand, may be the key to persuading a slow child to stop defecating in the bath, there eventually comes a time when you just pull the plug and slap him.

Once when I was riding my bicycle at great speed, I developed speed wobble and was thrown, rolling several times and sliding several meters, toward a busy intersection. I was lucky enough not to enter the flow of traffic thanks only to friction.

As bicycles do not come with safety airbags, I now carry an inflatable raft and pump with me at all times.

I live in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It is the best village in the

whole world and a thriving metropolis with seventy-four residents. When I grow up I want to drive the village car. My plan is to drive to the neighboring village in the middle of the night and steal their fire. The residents of Wellington will probably build a mud statue in my honor like they did for my uncle Robert when he caught a pig.

Every day I play the national sport of “throw a stick,” where you throw a stick. It is so much fun, and often I will spend the entire day throwing a stick. Each night when I climb into bed, I practice by throwing twigs across the room in preparation for the next day’s game of throw a stick. When I ...

My auntie, who is also my second cousin and the village prostitute, pays me two shells, the New Zealand currency, to sit on her p...

My

uncle Robert—who is also my nephew, the official village pig catcher, and head of New Zealand tourism (famous for the catch phrase: “At least it’s not Adelaide”)—has initiated several projects aimed at increasing tourism to New Zealand. These include an annual four-day “Look at the Sheep” festival, sheep rides, a “famous sheep through history...

I also sold him a computer, stating that it had twice the amount of megatron as other available systems.

Thank you for responding to the online request I filled out several months ago and your kind offer to allow me to test ride the product before paying what is essentially five times the value of my

car.

When I was nine I was traded to wandering gypsies for six onions.

I’m saving up to go to Bali. Bali is a beautiful and spiritual place, and accommodation is very cheap because a lot of villagers drowned to death.