Corporate Speak for Everyday Life

FOR EATING YOUR ROOMMATE'S FOOD

Dear Doug,

I announce with a heavy heart that today marks the final day of your leftovers from that good Thai place, not the one by the museum but the other good one. Tough decisions had to be made, and it was in the best interests of my stomach, a subsidiary of me, to absorb the contents of that cardboard box. But we can't dwell in the past; in this time of sadness, we must now look to the prolific family of goods that make up the refrigerator brand. Ketchup levels remain at an all-time high, thanks to a midnight acquisition of several hundred packets from behind the abandoned Burger King. You still haven't thrown out that Thanksgiving turkey from the fridge: a bold move in this decidedly anti-parasite world of ours. While we'll never see those eight ounces of noodles in peanut sauce again, this household must continue to coexist and also let me pay rent on the ninth because I still owe my dealer.

FOR RUNNING OVER SOMEONE WITH YOUR CAR

Your Car and My Bike to Merge

This joyous Thursday marks the initial merger of your bike and my car, hereby referred to as my scratched and bloodied car. This is a time to celebrate, but also a time to say goodbye; due to a rocky and unpredictable 2013, a portion of your bike and my car will be finding new opportunities in the up-and-coming "laying in a gutter" field, and we wish them the best. My hood ornament, right windshield wiper, and right passenger side mirror will not be joining the scratched and bloodied car team, and several of your teeth and fingers (uncounted) will no doubt find diverse opportunities through being the prizes for games of street craps won in a meth haze. Our competitors and certain members of the police department don't think we can make this work; let's prove them both wrong by being very quiet as your internal organs spill out onto my dashboard.

FOR BREAKING UP

April 4, 2013

As of midnight, the entity once existing as "You and Me" will henceforth be dissolved into two wholly independent subentities, each operating within a strict jurisdiction. Over the next five months, the following plan of action will be implemented to restore both operations to "full productivity:"

• A general "winding down" of sexual activity.
• Mutual exchange of transferred possessions, including but not limited to ratty old t-shirts.
• Never mentioning to anyone the time your cousin tricked me into hitting on her.
• Gradual removal of joint Facebook pictures, under the restrictions of the "Memory Hole" clause.
• Sitting alone and forlorn in the apartment, staring vacantly out the window and wondering about all those babies that could have been.

The former entity of you and me remained an unstoppable force for the two years of our joint partnership, but market pressures demand diversification, and the choices necessary to keep me running these past 26 years have not been made prematurely. In closing, I hope you join me this Saturday at 9:00am as we say goodbye to You and Me formally by getting tested at the free clinic.

FOR SAYING GOODBYE TO AN UNLOVED ONE

Swanson Family Team Members,

The Grandpa George division of the Swanson organization opened for business on September 13, 1926, and after an unprecedented 86 years as our oldest branch, ceased to be this past Tuesday. Grandpa George will be spun off into a joint venture with a soggy hole in the ground, providing the Swanson Family Team with a savings of $800 per month and the Saturdays once lost to dialysis and water aerobics.

Grandpa George saw a steep decline in productivity by 2008, and in a marketplace that greatly values homespun wisdom over racist jokes, we had no choice but to adapt to these demands. With the promotion of Uncle Travis to our Folksy Fables Guru, the Swanson children are now 10% less likely to touch a hot stove, when our statistics show they would have previously done that and then shouted something terrible at the new mailman. And with any luck, Uncle Travis will soon work his way up to being part of Grandpa George's new venture with a soggy hole in the ground, freeing up hours of productivity for those who choose to remain uninterested in his matchbook collection.

2013 looks to be a year of many challenges. But even keeping the deathbed curse of Grandpa George in mind, we will soldier on.