Years ago, when the net was young, before Al Gore took credit for it, before the world wide web was more than a glimmer in someone's eye, when dinosaurs and usenet ruled the planet, I was working very long hours (80+ hour weeks). At lunch and dinner, if I weren't going anywhere, I'd eat something at my desk and write nonsense and throw it out into the ether as stress relief.
One night, out of nowhere, I came up with Roadkills-R-Us, recycling as high up the food chain as possible, turning roadkill into meals. I posted jobs for everything from Roadkill Removal Technician I all the way up to VP. I committed the unpardonable sin of posting this farce in the "help wanted" newsgroup rather than somewhere meant for silliness. It went over great.
Soon after, I posted an opening for a software engineer at RRU, with absurd requirements, based on some of the silly (but serious) job ads I was seeing. I received four (serious) resumes in the U. S. Mail.
From time to time I added to the company lore over the next few years. When the web was in its infancy, I wanted to explore the technology. I put together a throw away web site for RRU. Because there were is few sites out there, it got reasonable traffic. I moved it off the company server to one at home just ion time to get attacked by Toys-R-Us (true, and documented at http://www.rru.com/ ). When I gave up on trying to talk rationally with them and took it to the media, things really took off, and the site got well known.
Some friends started calling me Roadkill. I started using the name at restaurants when there was a waiting list (half the fun was when people had to announce us: "Roadkill, party of four, your table is ready.") Since we eat at Chuys a lot (1-2x a week for almost 20 years as of this writing), that's how they all know us-- as Mr. and Mrs. Roadkill.
When we have leftovers in take out boxes, we always label them as to whose they are and the date. On mine, I draw a roadkill fish. (Why a fish? Because it's absurd, of course! And because two of my best friends nicknamed me "Fish" years ago for no apparent reason.) Once, at a Chuys lunch with the Weier clan (no, they are not wolves), Rachel asked if she could add to my "artwork". The result was an instant classic.
Artists: Rachel Weier and Miles O'Neal
Medium: Pen and crayon on styrofoam
Date: Nov 26, 2010 A.D.
4 comments:
What's it like to be so brilliant??? :)
I;d like to point out that we're so well known as the Roadkills at Chuy's that when i first put in a job application to work there as a hostess, I was asked if my (real) name was a fake. It took everyone some time to learn I was legally known as something other than Miss Roadkill.
Peggy: Sheer joy. Once you don't care what people think. 8^)
Dearest daughter: At some point I plan to write up the long version. I will run that past you for input! (Mwah!)
I'm with Peggy! And now I feel like I know some of "the rest of the story".
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