Every year we like to pull a fast one on our clients during April Fool’s. In the past there have been fibs about treating Star Trek Tribbles, sighting Sasquatch near Bear Mountain, and others. This year, we thought it might be inappropriate to play a trick given the current headlines, but we wanted to offer up some kind of fun to cheer everyone up, so we came up with a plan.
Three Stories, But Only One Is Real
Many of you have seen some of the memes floating around about what it’s like to work from home with your pet. We decided to offer up three stories about pet owners sharing isolation with their pets, only one of which is true. Read all three stories, than use the poll below to register your guess and then find out the real answer.
Story #1:
Cat Tricks of The Trade
A securities broker, working from home with his cat, Blue Chip, had an alarming surprise near the middle of March. After he got up from his makeshift home-office-desk, the cat walked across his computer keyboard and accidentally confirmed a trade worth $400,000.
Kyle Morgenthau of New York City, like so many New Yorkers, was working from home during the corona outbreak and completing some last minute research on a pharmaceutical company before executing an important trade worth $400,000. Leaving the trade window open on his computer, he got up to refill a glass of water, forgetting that Blue Chip regularly lies on top of his laptop to enjoy the warmth that the machine radiates.
As soon as Kyle was out of sightlines, Blue Chip leapt onto the computer and sometime in the middle of circling about the keyboard to find the perfect place to lie down, hit the return key and purchased $400,000 worth of the pharma stock.
Morgenthau shooed the cat away when he returned, but did not discover the trade until more than 3 hours later, by which time the stock had increased in value by 2% growing his investment by $8,000!
Morgenthau decided to keep the stock, rather than deal with the hassle and expense of trading it again. And as a reward for Blue Chip’s savvy investment skills, Morgenthau purchased a brand new laptop and gave the old one to his cat. Morgenthau keeps the old laptop powered up all the time and resting on his kitchen counter, another favorite forbidden zone for Blue Chip.
Says Morgenthau, “Now everyone’s happy, Blue Chip can be on the counter AND sleep on a warm computer. He’s the happiest I have seen him in years and his first stock trade has grown in value by a total of 3.2%. If it hits 4%, I told Blue Chip I’d install a fish bowl screen saver on his desktop.”
Story #2:
Frito Fetches Cheetos
Miguel Hernandez, like so many other residents of L.A., was stuck at home under self-quarantine, when he acquired a huge case of the munchies and found himself jonesing for a bag of Cheetos. A strip mall that contained a Dollar Store was tantalizingly close, just across the way, but how to execute the purchase?
That’s when Hernandez decided to solicit the help of his Chihuahua, Frito. He wrote a note explaining what he wanted, strapped it to the dog’s back, and slipped a twenty-dollar bill underneath the dog’s collar. He then opened the door to his apartment and instructed the dog, “Get daddy something from the store, Frito. Go on. Andale!”
After a bit of coaxing, the dog trotted off and, to the shock of Hernandez watching from afar, walked right into the open door of the Dollar Store and emerged a few minutes later with a family-sized bag of Cheetos in his mouth.
“I was utterly shocked,” said Hernandez. “Firstly, Frito can be very wary of strangers, so I didn’t know that he would let anyone get close enough to read the note, let alone get the money out from underneath his collar. Secondly, Frito is a notorious dumpster diver. I was very concerned that if the Dollar Store guy sold Frito the chips, Frito would just open them in the parking lot and eat them.”
But Frito didn’t eat the chips! He trotted the bag across the parking lot to Hernandez’s apartment building on the other side. The dog even managed to avoid dragging the snacks through a big puddle in front of the complex. Hernandez was very pleased with himself for hatching the scheme and the dog was thrilled with his accomplishment.
“It was as if Frito understood how amazing his efforts were. After I shared a few Cheetos with him, he ran around the apartment like he was full of joy. With a dog like Frito, quarantine is definitely manageable; it’s even fun! I could make money off this guy. He could be a delivery dog for this complex!”
Story #3:
Closet Call Center
A Verizon call center employee with kids, two dogs, and a cat is forced to set up an office in her closet when working from home becomes impossibly distracting.
Amanda Blackwell is a call center operator for Verizon and in the middle of March was told that she would now be working from home. At first, Amanda was thrilled with the news. “I thought to myself, this will be great. I’ll be with my kids, and my two dogs and cat, Frisbee, but that got old real quick,” Blackwell said. “I was interrupted every 3 minutes. I had dogs barking in the background, kids fighting, the cat chewing on my hair, the dogs pushing their faces into my crotch. I felt like one of those caribou that gets driven crazy by mosquitos. I felt like charging out of my house and running amok.
“It got so bad, that I eventually moved into a third floor closet in our house. Honestly, it’s not more than 5-by-5 feet square. I feel like Harry Potter living underneath the staircase. I bought an extension for the phone line on Amazon, put a little clip-on lamp in there…I basically moved my entire office into a closet.
“It’s the only place I’m able to get any kind of quiet or work time in and would you believe the kids and the animals followed me up there! The dogs and cat sit outside and look at the door or they’ll paw at it and whine. The other day my kids knocked on the door and asked for me. I told them she wasn’t there.”
Asked how she’s planning to manage things moving forward, Blackwell reported from her closet-office, “I’m managing fine. It’s the rest of the family that has to figure this isolation thing out. It’s a bit dark in here, but it’s quiet and the third floor is the warmest in the house. I’m great. If it was big enough for a bed, I’d sleep in here too.”
[democracy id=”8″]
Happy April Fool’s everyone! We changed the story up a bit so you couldn’t Google the right answer, but here is the link to the real story!
Call 845-638-3600, email or use the form below to reach out to us!