Soon the mess made of our cherished, still by and large God-fearing nation by the childishly utopian policies of the pro-Socialist, anti-Creationist, triple-digit-IQ, arrogantly opposable-thumbed, pro-fellatio Clinton administration will be over. According to anonymous yet fictional experts, we are entering a period of rugged individualism characterized by distinct changes in our federal economic, municipal and genital policies. How can we, as spiritually enlightened investors, best take financial advantage of these changes? By investing compassionately. By firing ourselves when we dare to strike. By covering our bases. By insisting on what is rightfully ours. By creating laws to benefit ourselves. By allowing for acceptable casualties. By taking all our money out of wherever all our money is and investing the whole wad in big cardboard boxes, wire coat hangers and shopping carts.

According to eyewitnesses, Henry D. Norris and Robert H. Thompson invented the big cardboard box in 1894, and big cardboard boxes soon came to be America’s best-loved containers for protecting such popular consumer goods as refrigerators, heroin and television sets from potential damage during shipping. But it wasn‘t until Inauguration Day 1981, immediately following the release of the American hostages in Iran, that Congress was able to pass suitable tax-deduction strategies encouraging investment in big cardboard boxes, and making possible the transition of the big cardboard shipping container into the big cardboard portable modular residential device.

“In the underground pathway of Shinjuku station (west exit) the homeless take pride living in their beautiful painted cardboard boxes.” TokyoScape (http:202.221.249.1tokyoqtokyoscapets.html) has a downright fascinating (though low-resolution) gallery of fine Box Men homes (http:202.221.249.1tokyoqtokyoscapebox1.html), coming soon to the streets of Los Angeles to compete with Kaufman & Broad (http:www.geocities.comPicketFenceStreet6903). When you’re done admiring the neighborhood, you might be inspired to see how your next home will be created at Acme Corrugated Box Co. Inc.‘s online plant tour (www.acmebox.complanttour.htm). I think we can all agree that, whether you’re packaging products or people, the best cardboard boxes are manufactured in “real time” and with “requisite quality,” as opposed to those manufactured in some quasi-fictional dimension beyond the scope of human comprehension and with an unnecessary degree of quality. And, as befits “a ‘real time’ manufacturer of corrugated shipping containers and corrugated packaging products,” Acme‘s site is filled with fascinating poetry that seems to have also been manufactured in real time:

Our goal is to reach a level of service

Unequaled in the marketplace

By freeing up cash flow, warehouse

space (better used for internal processes),

requiring less handling

and therefore less damage

While guaranteeing the freshness of

the product.

By simply clicking on links,

you can tour our plants

to see what type of machinery we use

to make your boxes quickly, efficiently,

And with requisite quality.

Our manufacturing operations

Are highly automated

To provide efficiencies

Of scale and productivity.

Who says there’s no affordable housing left in Santa Monica? Don‘t forget: That’s Acme Corrugated Box Co. Inc. (www.acmebox.com): Your Real-Estate Agent for the New MillenniumTM.

In 1903, just nine years after the cardboard box appeared, American ingenuity struck again: The wire coat hanger was invented by one Albert J. Parkhouse of Jackson, Michigan, returning to work after lunch on a cold afternoon to find all the coat hooks occupied. Parkhouse, whose tinkerinventor duties at Timberlake & Sons included making stuff out of wire (lampshade frames and . . . well, maybe just lampshade frames), immediately grabbed some all too readily available materials and fangled a device to avoid the unpleasant resort of draping his overcoat across the back of his chair or atop a credenza, of getting it all wrinkled and everything. And money was made. But it wasn‘t until the 1930s that the wire coat hanger really found its niche in the marketplace, as privately funded researchers discovered its use as an iconic (if only intermittently functional) unimmaculately-conceived-fetus remover, with no side effects beyond hemorrhage, infection and occasional festering death. Then, in 1973, production was reduced by 180 percent as the coat hanger was replaced by Communist-funded sterile medical equipment and selfish, immoral people who concern themselves with the right to life after birth . . . And now this word from Laidlaw Wire Hangers: Getting laid? Having “packaging” problems? Get Laidlaw! Laidlaw wire hangers (www.laidlawcorp.comindustrialhangers.html), that is! If you’ve ever been to a dry cleanery, you‘ve seen Laidlaw’s 11.5-, 12.5- and 14.5-gauge wire hangers, easily recognized by their trademark “Golden Beauty” finish. Choose from shirt hangers, strut hangers, drapery hangers, uniform-rental hangers, or caped hangers printed with your custom logos and slogans or with one of Laidlaw‘s legendary stock slogans, “Dry Clean When You Care” or “WE ª OUR CUSTOMERS.” “Each hanger is carefully shaped and dipped,” says Laidlaw. “And our wide variety assures that we make the products which will prove to be the ’solution‘ to your packaging problems.”

Half wireless wire coat hanger, half cardboardless big cardboard box, the world’s first plastic shopping cart was invented by Rehrig International (www.rehrig.com), the largest shopping-cart manufacturer in the United States. More recently, Rehrig, whose impressive product line includes not only carts and racks but dollies, platform trucks and mobile merchandisers, has teamed up with the Microban Products Co. to produce the world‘s first antimicrobial shopping carts — carts treated with a nontoxic additive to inhibit the growth of bacteria, thus keeping the carts odor- and stain-free. Rehrig makes some tasty carts, it do. Whether you choose the Regular, Jumbo, Snub-Nose, Mini, Vista, Scanner, Large Scanner or Scanner Jr., when the time comes to cash out your cartload of aluminum cans, your Rehrig International shopping cart will be the envy of the recycling center. Order yours today!

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