A Holiday Message from the CEO of CBennettworld

From my congested heart ventricles to yours, all the best for the 2021 holiday season.

All the best what? you’re wondering. All the best mRNA vaccines, all the best N95 masks, all the best physical distancing from your fellow humans! This is truly the most wonderful and awful time of year. 

As I reflect on another year drawing to a close, I can’t help but marvel at how I share a name with the latest variant of Covid-19. You see, my middle name happens to be Omicron. Carolyn Ann Omicron Bennett, (my parents were fans of the 1963 Italian science fiction movie of the same name, directed by Ugo Gregoretti.) I feel delighted and repulsed by this, similar to my feelings when I lost my virginity. But I digress. 

Once again, all my imaginary employees, from the overworked teams tethered to fulfillment, to the farsighted business analysts slumped at their computers, wish you a happy holiday season, full of joy and purified airborne particles. 

In our imagination, you’ve asked CBennettworld what it is doing for the environment. As a global citizen, CBennettworld is serious about doing its part to create a cleaner, greener world. To that end, and in keeping with our Corporate Sustainability Goals (CSG), our workers shall receive no Christmas bonuses or company presents of any kind this year. 

More news! Our conglomerate is set for big change in 2022. Imaginary Head Office is moving from Toronto, Canada, to a bigger and better Imaginary Head Office, somewhere between Kingston, Canada, and Centaurus A, Outer Space. I look forward to our new letterhead. 

2021 began with an attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building, and is ending with more public health restrictions due to a highly transmittable variant of the coronavirus. We’ve gone from point A to point A, but through it all we’ve stuck together, like passengers on the 501 streetcar. In these trying times, I quote Genesis 15:9 (New International Version): So the LORD said to him, “bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon”.  What God is saying is … pets are nice. Pat a dog, cat, heifer, goat or ram today, along with a dove and a young pigeon. But do not eat them. Not these ones. Even at Christmas. They’re pets. 

So when life gets you down, when Covid-19 (or 20, 21, or whatever it’s up to) upends your plans to have a nine course meal at the top of the CN Tower and forces you to stay home and suffer through old episodes of The Crown on Netflix, do what I do – watch a documentary on the siege of Leningrad. You’re guaranteed to kiss the ground of your 7000 square foot forever home afterward. 

In the meantime, be of good cheer and of generous spirit. Public health says at 50% capacity, but I’m challenging you to be 100% grateful! On behalf of my imaginary employees and C-suite team, I wish you a peaceful and happy Christmas, free from facing your own mortality. 

Signed,

Carolyn Ann Omicron Bennett

Imaginary CEO, CBennettworld

Elevator Pitch: April 2020, Toronto

The elevator slowed. The 68 button lit up.

          Don't come in. Don't come in . Don't come in.

          The elevator stopped at the 68th floor.

          I searched for the close door button with my elbow, aimed, and leaned my weight into it.  For crying out loud, I was only going to the pharmacy to buy some generic desloratadine. Yes, I should have been shopping for a month's worth of groceries, but I get them delivered and besides, I was ready to rip out my eyes and serve them up to my followers on Instagram. Here -- have my itchy, watery, burning eyes, bitches.

          The doors parted with a tinny rumble. For a moment, stillness, as if someone had snapped a photo. The taupe wall, the utilitarian mauve carpet, someone's ideas of 2015 functional opulence. I was suckered, I must admit. I'm no longer a suckee. I got wise.

          And that's why I dread seeing him.

          I didn't know I was holding my breath, my hope was that intense. I tucked my head down. Please don't let it be him.

          The first thing I saw were his black 10 percent leather Oxfords and his statement socks, socks detailed with intricate mushrooms. Even through my blurry vision, I could see mushrooms, like hovering spaceships. I wish.

          I kept my head down, but there was no point. Sometimes you have to look your tormentor in the eye.

         He began. "Okay. How about this. Masks for dogs."

          He had his grey blazer on, again, of inferior make, but business casual passable. I had to, had to respond because I'm conditioned by god knows what to be accommodating, even to this guy.

          "Being made by the thousands in Oklahoma as we speak." I kept my fists clenched in my hoodie pockets.

          "Okay." He drummed his fingers on his smooth shaven cheeks, again, kudos to him. "Cats?"

          "Probably. Look, I don't want to appear--"

          "What about a show about a guy, a sales guy who's been laid off, who ... hustles his neighbours to invest in his ideas?"

          I shot a desperate look at the floor button panel. Buttons lit up in succession-- 60, 59, 58 -- wasn't anyone in the building going out for air?

          "Or delivering balloons to construction workers? To cheer them up? They're front line workers, aren't they? Or what about -- the Real Housewives of Toronto, but they're all drag queens? That's good! Don't you think that's good?"

          The elevator slowed and stopped at the 49th floor. The doors parted to reveal a young woman wearing a rhinestone mask and clutching an Affenpinscher. She saw us and shook her head.

          "No. it's okay!" I said. "There's enough room in here. We can fit three."

The elevator doors closed as she took a step back.

          "Robots. I mean, come on, it's about time. A little after the fact, even. Hair cutting robots?"

          "Prototypes in Japan. They also cut your toenails and give you a massage." I couldn't bring myself to tell him about the happy ending.

          "A vaccine?"

          "Of course."

          "Yeah, I can't get that together" He tapped his forehead with his index finger.

          I cursed my laptop's camera. Communication, I have come to understand, is not always an individual's obligation to society.

          "Listen," he spread his hands wide, by his own side and at a safe distance, "one channel. For everything. For our televisions, for our dishwashers, our beds, thermostats, heartbeats, cars --

"Internet of Things. Now please, I have nothing to --

          "But you do, Jessica. You're an influencer. You have a million followers. And I'm just some guy. You know what I have in my fridge? A quarter of a burrito and truffle poutine from last week. I don't want to go to the food bank! How about -- hair extension extensions?"

          The elevator dropped, kept dropping, down, down, and bereft, I saw my eventual death, and his eventual death, as frivolous. Still, I caught his pleading gaze. There was nothing I could do.

          "Let me see what I can do."

          He grinned weakly. I suppose he was no idiot. Between us nothing but white noise, then his "thank you."

          Small mercies. Desloratadine was on sale.