Quirky Flash Chronicles

From the series – A Certain American Life
By Kenny Eoin 

The day I decided to save the entire species from its chronic unhappiness began, as so many galactic-scale catastrophes do, in a 2005 Honda Element with 194,000 miles and a faint smell of old French fries.

It was 19 September 2019, a date that will live in infamy or at least in mild embarrassment. Traffic on I-285 was doing its usual impression of continental drift. My wife, let’s call her the long-suffering co-pilot of my existence, was explaining why buying forty-seven rolls of toilet paper at Costco had been “perfectly rational prepping.” I nodded in the way husbands have nodded since the dawn of language—eyes forward, soul elsewhere—and then casually detonated the bomb.

“Honey,” I said, “I’m going to start my own business.”

She went very quiet. This is never good. Quiet from her is the conversational equivalent of the cockpit voice recorder picking up, “Uh, Houston, we have a problem.”

“Pull over,” she said.

I jetted up the next exit ramp and pulled over. Georgia heat shimmered off the asphalt like the way common sense shimmers away from me on a regular basis.

She unbuckled. “You’re serious.”

“Seventy-eight percent serious,” I admitted. “Possibly seventy-nine after lunch.”

She opened the door. “Then I’m walking the rest of the way. You can use the alone time to contemplate the life expectancy of this idea.” And with the calm dignity of someone abandoning a sinking ship that hasn’t quite realised it’s sinking yet, she stepped out and began marching along the shoulder in heels that were clearly designed for office carpets, not Georgia heat just off the highway, road trekking.

I considered this development. On the one hand, free car. On the other hand, a probable divorce. I rolled down the window.

“Sweetheart! You’re going to miss our first official board meeting!”

She kept walking. A semi-truck blasted past doing eighty, and the driver gave her an appreciative wolf-whistle, because even in the apocalypse-level marital strife, some traditions endure.

And that, ladies, gentlemen, and sentient cloud beings, is how my wife missed the founding of the most important company in human history: Universal Happiness Incorporated™ (soon to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Earth, terms and conditions pending).

I had, to be fair, prepared extensively. For roughly six days, I had consulted the foremost expert and mentor in my immediate postcode: Mary K. Blohm, retired high-school basketball coach and possessor of a whistle that could curdle milk at forty paces. Mary and I had taken many long walks—some during daylight, some under the cover of darkness so the neighbours wouldn’t file noise complaints about “existential rambling at 2 a.m.” again—and we had stress-tested the business model from every angle.

Conclusion: flawless.

The business model was simplicity itself. We sell happiness. Online. To everyone. For free, initially, because nothing says “sincere desire to improve the human condition” like giving away the product and then billing people later for the air they breathed while using it. (Monetisation strategy: Phase 17.)

Core product: a website containing photographs of every happy person on Earth. If you’re not happy, our crack team of underpaid graphic designers will Photoshop a smile on you faster than you can say “terms of service.” Refusal to smile will be interpreted as a cry for help and escalated to Happiness Support Tier 3 (armed with puppies and homemade cookies).

Job openings: literally all of them. Once you’re happy, you’re hired. Job description: make other people happy. Benefits include unlimited sleep, mandatory video-game time, and a strict limit of three decisions per day because, as science has proven, decisions are the leading cause of unhappiness after mosquitoes and stepping on Lego.

Company headquarters: my garage in Gwinnett County, Georgia, widely regarded by me as the finest county in Georgia and therefore the optimal for global domination. Critics claim location is irrelevant for an online business. I counter that if Jeff Bezos had been born in Gwinnett County, Amazon would have free two-hour delivery of peach cobbler and passive-aggressive notes about your lawn.

First hire: my wife, obviously. Title: Chief Keep-It-Together Officer (CKITO). Responsibilities: tell me I’m an idiot, in writing, daily. Salary: whatever loose change is in the couch, plus my undying affection. Transition period: approximately negative four seconds, since she’s been in training for twenty-three years.

I was certain she would come around once she grasped the grandeur of the vision. After all, she loves anything with an “e” in front of it: eBooks, eCommerce, eHarmony (long story), even eColi if it came with free shipping.

So there I was, alone in the Element, dictating the company charter into my phone while stuck in a bag of stale Cheetos.

“Article One: All your happiness belongs to us.  

Article Two: Resistance is futile; you will be uplifted.  

Article Three: Casual Fridays are mandatory every day because suits are unhappy.”

By the time I reached the house, I had also invented the Happy Suggestion Box—an automated system that takes your brilliant idea, improves it, implements it, and then takes credit for it, thereby reducing your daily decision load and boosting net happiness by 14.6% (citation needed).

I pulled into the driveway, walked inside, and immediately walked back out again because I had forgotten the most important start-up expense in history: apology flowers.

Twenty minutes later, I was cruising back down the highway with a bouquet the size of a small shrub riding shotgun. I spotted her three miles in—still marching like a very determined, very sweaty penguin—thumb out in the universal gesture of “I’m not hitching, I’m protesting.”

I pulled alongside and lowered the window.

“Need a lift, future Chief Keep-It-Together Officer?”

She eyed the flowers, eyed me, and sighed the sigh of a woman who realises the universe has a sense of humour, and it is aimed directly at her.

“Get in,” she said. “But if you say the word ‘synergy’ even once, I’m keeping the flowers and setting the car on fire.”

I grinned the grin of a man whose species-scale salvation plan is 78% complete.

“Deal. Also, I’ve already enrolled us in couples therapy. It’s BYOP—Bring Your Own Puppies.”

She got in, buckled up, and took the flowers.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed happily, “but I’m going to be a rich, idiot philanthropist who forces the entire planet to be happy whether they like it or not.”

She considered this.

“Fine. But I’m adding a clause: if this fails, we’re moving to Tennessee and opening a Waffle House. At least there people are honest about their unhappiness.”

And that, dear reader, is how the most ambitious start-up in human history began: with a marital spat on an Atlanta highway, one slightly overheated wife, and a dream so large it needed its own zip code.

Phase One—convince one woman she isn’t married to a complete lunatic—complete.

Phase Two—universal joy—loading…