Story Idea Ambush

Because my relationship with the English language is often contentious—especially when it comes to spelling—I tend to take poorly worded and misspelled messages with a grain of salt. I mean, today I got a note from someone touting his company’s web design service and their specialty of serving authors, with the subject line of “Why do most science fiction authors don’t have websites?”

(Read it again, slowly. Helps if you murmur it aloud, but softly. I’ll wait.)

The picture above, however, was funny on two fronts. I snapped it while waiting in line at a chain grocery store. Using the term “artisan” for water is dubious at best; but to have the sign right there, on the front of cases where the product is clearly labeled “artesian,” just made it that much funnier. Add to that the fact that when I pointed this out to a manager, she told me the sign designs come down from corporate, so the local folks had no way to fix it even if they noticed.

See Corporate America. See Corporate America fail. (And the trick is that you know it wasn’t some illiterate who made this error. If you’re illiterate, you won’t use the word artisan (and probably aren’t tasked with a lot of typing). You use artisan if you think you’re educated and want to show off.)

Of course, the other aspect of this which was funny, and was the story idea ambush mentioned above, was from the idea of artisan water. I had visions of men and women in lab-coats with snappy little French berets, hand-crafting water. They diligently studied each atom. Oh no, that Oxygen atom, clearly bruised. That Hydogen atom, it had survived from the Big Bang. That’s way past the sell-by date. No, we need the perfect atoms which will fit together as if made for each other. Not only with this artisan water refresh the body, it will replenish the soul, as you will be drinking pure beauty!

To heck with designer drugs, we’re talking designer water. “Oh no, I could never drink Gucci; I’m strictly Calvin Klein.” We could have fashion seasons for water; water-waiters could suggest food pairings; and people would notice how much better an ice sculpture looks when made of one water rather than another. And some Russian Billionaire will buy an NFL franchise and have his rink done over with a very specific ice blend.

So, there, that’s what it’s like to be a writer. You see one thing, start riffing, and somewhere in there you have a story. Or three. That’s why this job is just so much fun.