Serialization of the WACKY MISADVENTURES of WARBLE McGORKLE - CHAPTER 18 (of 70)
Warble Attempts to Extort the Nut Company
CHAPTER 18
Warble Attempts to Extort the Nut Company
Warble rises from bed chipper as all get-out the next morning. He has a plan, and is confident of its success. He had felt so effusive, expansive and generous the night before that he had treated his host Bob Shiska and the Wax family to dinner at Jambe de Grenouille, an expensive French restaurant. It is Saturday morning, and Warble is the first one up and around. He puts on a large pot of coffee and sits down at Bob's computer to compose his letter to the International Nut Company.
Of course, certain of the details will have to be filled in later, such as when and where he will buy the crates of peanuts, his specific experience in being not-quite-completely satisfied ... and, of course, he will have to include the receipt.
By the time Bob rises and drags himself to the coffee pot, Warble has completed the draft:
To Whom It May Concern,
Good day. Let me get right to the point. I purchased <fill in the number here after I see how many I can acquire> cartons of your double-refund-guaranteed peanuts.
I regret to inform you that I am not completely satisfied with your product. May I remind you that your guarantee explicitly states that if I am not completely satisfied I am due a 200% refund. Well, I'm here to tell you, I am not completely satisfied, no sir! (Or ma'am--sorry about that, I don't mean to sound like a male chauvinist or anything like that if it's a chick who receives this missive).
As a point of order (I learned this from Perry Mason, so I want you to know you're not dealing with some wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn tinhorn here), I would like to take the liberty to quote, in full, your guarantee as printed on your product's packaging. It says, to wit:
If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with this International Nut product, please retain this package and contact us. We will cheerfully refund double the amount you paid for it.
So you see I have you over a barrel and have caught your overly generous guarantee writers or overly careless lawyers, whichever it is, red-handed (because I am not completely satisfied). I would gauge the degree of my satisfaction with your product at approximately 94.2%.
Since that manifestly does not denote complete satisfaction (which would require 100% satisfaction, a degree of satisfaction your peanuts definitely didn't achieve with me), I must sadly and regretfully request--post haste, if you please--the double refund due me.
Enclosed you will please find (you see, just because I have outsmarted your lawyers or whoever doesn't mean I can't be dignified, professional, and polite) a photocopy (my momma didn't raise no fools!) of my receipt for your faulty product in the amount of <put in the amount here, once it's known>.
You can make out the check (from your oodles of moolah which you have extorted from the poor and oppressed workers and hungry folks of the world, who waste their money on your less-than-completely-satisfying product) to the order of:
Warble P. McGorkle
And send it to the following address:
Warble McGorkle
c/o Bob Shiska
157 Riverside Avenue
Dayton, Ohio 31415-9265
P.S. Fork over the dough, but quick! Otherwise, I will unleash a legion of lawyers, an array of attorneys, an army of advocates, a battery of barristers, on you.
P.S. Revisited: Hopefully a word to the wise (or at least those who know what's good for them, which side of their bread is buttered, etc.) is sufficient.
P.S. Revisited Addendum: If not (although I hate to be a name-dropper), I must confess that I do have a certain business 'arrangement' with a certain 'gentleman' named Guido who is, let's say, not normally prone to being gentle, delicate, and dainty in matters of this sort.
Sincerely, Your Obedient Servant,
Warble P. McGorkle
Warble is enormously satisfied with himself--definitely more satisfied with himself than he was with the peanuts, although, to tell you the truth, they were just as good as any other peanuts he had ever had the pleasure of masticating.
After Bob goes to work, Warble impatiently waits for Mary to wake up.
After a few minutes of pacing back and forth between the kitchen, the living room, and the door of the guest bedroom (the five cups of coffee he drank are probably playing a role here), Warble's impatience to get his business consummated overwhelms him. He rustles through Bob's kitchen drawers until he finds a pen and pad. He scratches out a note to his wife:
Mary,
I'm at Price Biz buying peanuts. Be back soon.
Warble
~^@^~~^@^~~^@^~~^@^~~^@^~~^@^~
You can listen to this chapter here:
the Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle is being serialized daily here on substack during the summer of 2021 (late June to early September).
NOTE: The second volume in the trilogy is the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle; the final volume, now available on Kindle Vella) is
Warble McGorkle’s Delusional Visions of Paradise.
the Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle can be purchased here: