Andy, paging through next year’s regional list: “Lessee, where can I send Mark next year while I’m off to New Zeeland? He is full-time now, so it’s got to be a little more fair than GLR while I was at Hawaii.”
In his own little world of success, AndyMark - Andy decided to take inspiration from the stand-alone water bottle and count to infinity. He got to one and a haze of confusion settled over his notes. He shook his head to clear the haze, took a swig of water, belched, and began again. He got to one.
Andy: hm, I’m not doing this right - infinity can not be that hard to attain. I’m Andy Baker, I could do this twice if I wanted to.
As the day wore on, the competition venue closed around him, orders for the AM products were placed, everyone said good night, and Andy sat there with his muse - the stand-alone water bottle, his notepad and pen, never clearing - one -.
Andy: Well, this is going to have to wait until IRI. Surely, some of the egos that come to play know how to count to infinity. Maybe beyond. Hey, they may even have a clicker. Nah - but I could make an AndyMark Infinity Clicker. Oh, I have to tell Mark about this… and the wheels started turning.
As Andy left the darkened hallway - his muse and inspiration, the stand-alone bottle of water, was tossed into the trash joining an infinite number of others that had been bagged and carried to the dumpster.
Andy mulls over the latest IRI team list with a perplexed look on his face…
Andy: This team just did an incredibly brave thing. What they should have done was stay at home! They don’t own this game - the Thunderchickens do! Their ego is writing checks their robot can’t cash. They’ve been busted, lost every qualification match at a regional three times, and received red cards twice, by me, with a history of high speed collisions with five hurdling robots, and one founder’s brother’s daughter!
Me, out of frame, randomly visiting for no reason: Libby Kamen?
Andy: And you, Hoffman. Your team is lucky to be here!
Me: Thank you, sir. Happy belated birthday, sir. May I get you another bottle of water sir?
Andy: And let’s not beat around the bush, Hoffman. Your schtick ain’t the best around. You need to be doing it better, and funnier than the other guy. Now what is it with you?
Me: Just want to serve my public, be the best caption writer on Chief Delphi, sir.
Andy: Don’t screw around with me Hoffman. You’re a heck of an instinctive writer. Maybe too good. I’d like to bust your butt but I can’t. I got another problem here. I gotta send somebody from this backup list to Indianapolis. I gotta do something here, I still can believe it. I gotta give them their dream shot! I’m gonna send them up against the best. This team…is going to IRI. For two days, they will be competing against the best robotics teams in the world. They were number two, the Poofs were number one. The Poofs lost it - pulled out of the event. Now this team is number one. But they should remember one thing: if they screw up, just this much, they’ll be building a robot frame out of rubber dog [puke] from Hong Kong!
“Mi-kan-umm … uhhhhhhh… Ma-cun-im … grrr … Mech-in … ackkkkkk!!! Hey Mark, I ran out of paper. We’re just gonna call them ‘Way-Cooler-Omnis-on-a-Slanty-Angle,’ OK?”
Andy works to expand his market by introducing AndyMark novelty party products.
Andy: When baked into a cake these AM party wheels will prevent the guest of honor from blowing out the candles by moving the cake in random directions.
Perspective customer: What does the label on them say?
Andy: Oh, that. These should only be used on a rather large table; the lawyers made us put those on.
(This picture is taken in 1985; you can see how young Andy looks!)
During his high school year in Junior Achievement Andy’s enterprise spirits were high but he just couldn’t market his “Omni directional Pot & Dish coasters to anybody.”
Not even a free daisy with every Omni-coaster.
