I haven’t seen much of Veronica lately, so it was a bit of a surprise when I came home this evening to find her sprawled on the couch in the living room, sobbing her eyes out.
“What happened?” I inquired, artfully concealing my irritation at her wetting down my hand-crafted Italian lamb’s leather upholstery.
“My new boyfriend lost his job,” she wailed, “and now I’ll have to dump him!”
“Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “There’s no law that says you have to dump your boyfriend just because he’s become unemployed.”
“There’s no law,” Veronica declared as she sat up, took a hankie from her purse and blew her nose daintily, “that says you have to shoot a horse with a broken leg, either, is there?”
“Not that I know of,” I conceded. “Is this that guy Brian, the fellow at Apple Computers’ application marketing division?”
“Yes,” she sniffed, dabbing at her mascara, “and there go all my plans for moving back to California – up in smoke, just like my house in Malibu!”
“So,” I surmised, “this fellow Brian isn’t independently wealthy? I mean, he needs a highly compensated executive position with a major corporation in order to be worth hanging around with?”
“That’s what the private detective and the accountant I hired told me,” Veronica confirmed, her lower lip quivering slightly as she spoke. “His net worth is only about one point three million.”
“Gee,” I remarked offhandedly as I took a seat on the couch next to her, “that’s barely enough to be worth a second look from you.”
“I know,” she sadly nodded, “but Brian was on the fast track at Apple, so I figured he would be a reasonable bet – at least to move back to the West Coast. At least he would have been good for a year or two until I found somebody with more money.”
“But he got downsized?” I speculated.
“No,” Veronica wept, “he got fired.”
“Fired?” I exclaimed. “I’ve noted that you never select prospects who display any risky traits such as creativity, individuality or intellectual independence, so what in the world could this guy Brian have done to get fired from a place like Apple?”
Veronica’s face went red as a fire truck’s paint job as her waterworks started up again, doing an excellent imitation of a pump engine fighting a six-alarm blaze. “He was the one who approved the Baby Shaker app!”
“Oh,” I murmured with as much sympathy as I could muster, “it’s definitely tragic, that they would fire your boyfriend for something so… innocent.”
“It certainly is,” Veronica agreed. “Tom, you just can’t imagine the effort I put into getting him!”
“Actually,” I averred, “I think maybe I can. But you have to admit, the Baby Shaker app turned out to be extremely controversial.”
“I thought it was cute!” Veronica protested as she grabbed another hankie. “The little virtual digital baby brat on the screen cries and cries and cries; then you shake your iPhone and it stops, just like a real baby.”
“It stops,” I pointed out, “but only if you shake your iPhone hard enough and long enough.”
“Yeah,” Veronica nodded, flashing me a slightly uncomprehending look, “of course, as I said – it’s just like a real baby.”
“You are aware,” I attempted to confirm, “that shaking a real baby to shut it up can result in serious brain damage or even death, aren’t you?”
“Jesus [expletive] Christ [expletive] on a [expletive] [expletive] sucking a [expletive]!” Veronica proclaimed in an obviously exasperated tone, “what the [expletive] is the matter with [expletive] people these days, anyway? Can’t anybody take a [expletive] joke anymore? [Expletive], Tom, iPhone apps are supposed to be clever, useful and fun! And let me tell you, Brian is a [expletive] genius when it comes to picking up on stuff like that!”
“Really?” I replied in my best skeptical tone.
“You bet your [expletive],” Veronica volleyed back, eagerly rising to the note of challenge in my voice. “The Baby Shaker was just the first of a whole line of innovative new iPhone apps he had slated for release before those [expletive] at Apple canned him!”
“Such as what?” I politely but firmly demanded.
“All right,” she began, now at least sufficiently distracted by wanting to put me in my place that she had stopped blubbering like a jilted coed character in a pulp novel written fifty years ago, “how about this – a drive-by insult app? I’m sure you know how huge drive-by insult videos have gotten lately on YouTube, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah,” I acknowledged, “no doubt about that. Why, drive-by insult videos are right up there with videos of teenage boys performing mindlessly conceived, horribly dangerous stunts; videos of teenage girls prancing around in sexy outfits attempting to be amusing; videos of raving, endless debates about the existence or non-existence of God, creation or evolution; videos expressing shallow, half-witted and vicious criticisms of the Obama Administration, and, of course, equally shallow, half-witted and vicious responses to them; videos of people getting hit in the crotch; videos of people getting hit in the head; videos of morons getting way too close to tornadoes; video cartoons of dubious animation quality depicting supposedly comic mayhem involving cute, furry animals, children, infants or women; videos of birds that appear to be able to dance; videos of hamsters eating things; videos of dogs that allegedly sing; and, of course, videos of people having extremely embarrassing experiences being ‘played off’ by the Keyboard Cat.”
“[Expletive] right!” Veronica emphatically declared. “The concept is extremely current, extremely popular and extremely in-sync with the iPhone target demographic!”
“So,” I pressed her, “how does the iPhone Drive-By Insult app work?”
“Well,” she explained, “Brian did a demo of it for me and it’s really simple and fun. You’re driving along, and up ahead, you see, oh, I don’t know – let’s say you see a blind person waiting at a bus stop. So you say ‘blind person waiting for a bus’ and the app’s voice recognition software understands what you said; and notice, Tom, how the app takes safety into account with that voice recognition feature, because you don’t want people typing stuff into their iPhones, or even selecting things off the screen with their hands while they’re driving.”
“Very responsible design requirements there,” I agreed.
“Absolutely,” Veronica nodded. “Brian looks for that kind of thing. He was very careful about Apple not getting sued. He said that even if the apps are third-party products, the lawyers always sue Apple too, because Apple has deep pockets, and the best way to avoid litigation is to think ahead and consider all the possibilities during the evaluation phase. So, after you say ‘blind person waiting for a bus’ the app immediately supplies you with a really, really clever drive-by insult, like ‘That’s not the bus stop, [expletive], you’re standing next to a No Parking sign!’ And what’s more, it’s extensible – you can get an add-on that plays the insults back through your car stereo, real loud, so you don’t have to shout them out the window yourself. Plus,” she beamed, “there’s another upgrade that lets a friend sitting in the shotgun seat simultaneously make a video recording with the iPhone so users can download them and create their very own drive-by insult content to post on YouTube! Now, Tom, is this guy Brian a genius or what?”
“No doubt about it,” I admitted, “the whole concept is perfectly in tune with a ubiquitous contemporary taste for cruel, nasty and heartless jokes at the expense of anyone who isn’t young, thin, beautiful, economically secure and in absolutely perfect health.”
“As usual Tom, you’re completely correct,” Veronica praised, “and that’s why I’m sure you’ll agree that the same principles apply to the Steal the Handicapped Parking Space game app. The gameplay is, you guide your car into a parking lot where there’s an empty handicapped space and you have to beat cars with handicapped license plates into it. And at each level, there are more and more handicapped people in cars with handicapped plates, maneuvering faster and faster, trying to beat you. It’s got eleven levels, Tom, eleven!”
“No doubt about it,” I observed, “that concept is completely in line with the amoral, solipsistic, nihilistic, depraved and sadistic qualities so widely appreciated in successful entertainment products enjoyed by the iPhone target demographic.”
“Sure,” Veronica bragged. “And Brian knows the iPhone target market inside out! You don’t think I’d spend my time on a loser, do you?”
“Never,” I concurred.
“Talk about big-selling apps Brian could have put on the Apple platform,” Veronica fumed. “It really [expletive] me off, Tom, just thinking about all that money, down the drain! Why, the Dating Bar apps alone…”
“Dating Bar apps?” I interrupted curiously.
“Yeah, Brian had three of them ready to go for the Apple iPhone platform – first, there was the Dating Bar Pickup Line app for men. The guy enters the name and address of the dating bar, then selects attributes of the women there using a menu system. When he’s done, the app suggests at least three dynamite pickup lines for each of the women he’s described. Then, there’s the Dating Bar Putdown app – that’s for women. It supplies quick and snappy responses to men’s pickup lines or, if selected, makes up plausible sounding excuses and white lies. For an extra fee, it will supply one of fifty thousand rotating telephone numbers to give guys in order to get them to go away and stop being a horny nuisance. She selects a number, then gives it to the guy. Once she’s done that, it’s assigned to her iPhone for a week, and for the first six days, the app pretends it’s an answering machine, using a greeting the woman records on her iPhone. She never calls back, of course – it’s not really her telephone number. The app doesn’t even waste memory recording the guy’s messages unless she tells it to. Then, on day seven, the guy calls the number and an automated message tells him to [expletive] off and the telephone number goes back into the available pool for other women to use. Plus, the woman can record something special for the guy if she wants, like if he was being particularly obnoxious or something. And to get even more bucks out of the meat markets, Brian lined up the Dating Bar Putdown Comeback app for guys. It’s an add-on to the Dating Bar Pickup Line app. If a guy encounters putdowns, a voice recognition utility figures out what the woman is saying and displays a snappy comeback on the guy’s iPhone screen. It’s really amazing, Tom – the voice recognition even works in the middle of a loud nightclub ten minutes before last call with a live band playing death metal while the woman is drunk and talking with a lisp in a Russian accent – I saw it myself!”
“I honestly can’t think of a better use for three thousand years of technological progress than that,” I vouched.
“No kidding,” she continued, “then there’s the Cruise in the HOV Lane app – a very practical tool for commuters. It would have been an instant hit! Damn!” Veronica muttered as she tossed her soaked hankie down on the coffee table vehemently. “I bet it still will be! It just won’t be Apple making all that money, or Brian getting the credit, the raises and the promotions, that’s all. The geeks who wrote it don’t care – they’ll just port the sucker over to the [expletive] Blackberry!”
“How does it work?” I must confess, I couldn’t readily imagine that.
“Oh, yeah,” Veronica sighed, “Brian said it was ‘pure digital poetry’ when he saw the first demo. The app uses GPS location to track where your car is, compares that to traffic patterns and on-line databases of known police car hangouts, speed traps and even marked mobile police cruiser locations in real time. When the time and position are right, it signals you to pull out into the HOV lane and drive. It even tells you how fast you can go, including values over the speed limit whenever possible. Then, when danger threatens, it signals you to pull back into normal traffic and wait until it’s safe again.”
“But what about HOV lane and toll booth cameras?” I asked.
“The app turns your iPhone into a radio-frequency interference transmitter,” she proudly stated, “and temporarily disables their EPROM circuits when you drive by. At the closed circuit traffic surveillance center, it just looks like a momentary burst of static. And before you object that the app is illegal, Brian checked that out, and it’s not, at least not at the moment. So for at least a year, people who buy the Drive in the HOV Lane app will be able to laugh at rush hour traffic and not have to put up with a bunch of dill weeds in a [expletive] car pool. And then there’s the Toddler Car app. That’s got even more potential.”
“What’s it do?” I inquired curiously.
“You set a car radio button to one of two frequencies that are way at either end of the FM dial,” she expounded. “Then, when you want to park and go into Starbucks to get a latte or something, you just punch that button and leave the radio on. Then you lock up the car, select the app, and go get your coffee, or get your nails done, or whatever. The Toddler Car app turns your iPhone into an instant child audio monitor – the speakers in your car radio start acting like microphones, broadcasting the sounds inside the car right to your iPhone ear buds. And if the car gets too hot, the kid will start to scream, right? That’s when you know it’s time to go back to the car.”
“Your friend Brian,” I speculated, “must have an uncanny grasp of how young mothers these days manage their time.”
“What did I say?” Veronica smugly responded. “Didn’t I tell you I know how to pick winners? There are literally millions of career women who would pay good money to download the Toddler Car app! And then there’s the Litter Zone app. It combines GPS capability with Google Earth photos and street maps mashed up with local ordinances nationwide! Brian said you could use that app to dump anything from used engine oil to a dead elephant without paying a dime! And how about this, Tom – how about an app that lets you make untraceable crank 911 calls? Think of the possibilities for using the cops to harass people you don’t like, make them show up when they’re not expected at parties someone forgot to invite you to, all kinds of stuff. You know something like that’s going to be a big seller with high school and college students.”
“Most likely it would,” I granted.
“And the Carbon BigfootPrint app, Tom, that was guaranteed to be a gold mine!”
“Big foot print?” I knit my eyebrows, puzzled.
“It’s an Apple app with a contest tie-in,” Veronica elucidated. “It uses your Twitter tweets to determine, from your description of what you’re doing, every minute of every day, what your carbon footprint is.”
“Oh, yeah,” I blurted, “now I get it – and the people with the smallest carbon footprints win prizes, right?”
Veronica’s vexed look made her disappointment with me extremely evident. “The smallest? Are you kidding? The users with the largest carbon footprints get the prizes! They’re the biggest consumers, and they’re the ones Brian wants to hook, Tom, not some [expletive] who ride their [expletive] bicycles to work. Jesus, sometimes, I worry about you. Look, when they turn over their names, contact information and e-mail addresses to get the Carbon BigfootPrint prizes, those suckers would be providing Apple with an enormous database of extreme consumers, Tom, a data warehouse of people with huge disposable incomes and no self-control or feelings of social responsibility to restrain them – a vast army of imbeciles, driven by pure, insatiable appetite! And what’s that, Tom? It’ll tell you what that is – it’s every advertising and marketing professional’s midnight wet-dream, that’s what! Brian could have provided Apple with an incredibly valuable information resource! And Apple could have sold access to it for gigantic fees!”
“You’re correct,” I acknowledged. “I was being naive.”
“That, Tom,” she jabbed, “if you don’t mind me making a constructive observation, is why you’ll never live in anything better than a dinky five bedroom house in Great Falls, Virginia.”
“Oh well,” I sighed, “one must learn to accept one’s fate gracefully.”
“Not me,” Veronica insisted. “I always get what I want – eventually, anyway.”
“So I’ve noticed,” I affirmed. “I guess you’ll be starting the search for Brian’s replacement right away, then?”
“I don’t really see any viable alternatives,” Veronica whispered, dejectedly, clawing at her purse for another hanky, then tossing it away petulantly when she could not find one in it.
“There, there,” I consoled as I proffered one of my Dior handkerchiefs, “the world is full of men with lots of money who are, nevertheless, way too stupid to see through you.”
“I know,” she wept, “but I’m not getting any younger. My biological clock is ticking.”
“You mean…”
“Yes,” she confirmed, “I know it – I only have a limited amount of time now before I’m too old to marry a really rich man, [expletive] him to death and inherit all his money.”
“Too bad,” I commiserated, “there isn’t an Apple iPhone app to help you with that.”