Alone, standing in front of a projection screen, was a man who looked as if he was from a different universe. He was dressed in a light grey suit, with a pink shirt and a shiny black silk tie. His hair was short, blond, well-groomed, and he had a wide smile which showcased his pearly white teeth. Anxiety mingled with confidence while he waited for the signal to start his presentation. The president obliged and spoke first.
“It is such a pleasure to have you here," he stated. “We’re all very flattered that you would grace us with your presence today.”
“Indeed," continued the vice-president, sitting next to him. “It is always special when the great Chuck Grizzly, the world’s most famous entrepreneur, deems us worthy of his next project.”
Chuck Grizzly, the man in the grey suit and the pink shirt, let out a hearty laugh. “Ha ha ha! Please! The pleasure is all mine, of course.” He made empty gestures of false modesty with his hands, as if trying to calm a crowd, but the truth was that he enjoyed when people looked up to him. “As you all know, I do have a knack for finding business ventures and connecting them to the right people. I seem to recall that the last time I was here, it was for the toaster project.”
“Ah yes!” laughed a man sitting close to the front of the table. “That waterproof toaster project made us millions! Who knew that people could enjoy saving time in the morning by showering and having breakfast at the same time?”
“You did, Chuck!” exclaimed an overjoyed man. “You did!”
“You’re a genius!” said another one of the minions. “It’s been such a long time since you brought one of your projects to us; we thought we weren't your favorites anymore!”
Nervous laughs were exchanged all across the room, but Chuck Grizzly quickly reassured them with a wink. “I would never do something like that! Rodger right here is my favorite golf partner!” The nervous laughs were now turning genuine. “Nobody could ever replace you my friends, which is why I only come here with my best ideas! And trust me, this one is probably my best of all time! I’m not even kidding!”
Chuck picked up a remote from the table and pressed a button. The screen behind him lit up with a most carefully designed Powerpoint presentation. Letters and pictures twirled around before finding their resting place on the screen. The first slide showed a picture of an oil rig in the middle of the ocean. “Oil," Chuck simply said. “Everybody needs oil. Not only the people who drive cars, but absolutely everybody on the planet. Most plastics are made from petroleum. Tons of other things too, like gasoline, or olive oil. The stuff’s everywhere!”
The people around the table looked at each other and nodded with enthusiasm, as if the true meaning of life had been revealed to them. Chuck Grizzly pressed the button on his remote control again, and the slide changed to a new one which was titled “Problems” with the text coloured like a rainbow running across the top.
“The problem with oil though," he continued, “is that we don’t have a whole lot of it left. If we’re not careful, studies clearly show we’ll run out of oil by the next fifty years! Now imagine a world without that black gold: No more cars!” This was met with the concerned grumbles from the people in the room. “No more oil means no more polyester. It means that you'll all be wearing clothes made from cotton, or wool, or even hemp!” Gasps echoed through the room. “Now who wears these things? Let me tell you who: Poor people wear cotton. Hippies wear hemp clothing. Do we really want to be like hippies?”
The people around the table were shaking their heads back and forth, obviously wanting nothing to do with any of these people. The thought of wearing the same thing as their subordinates sent shivers down their spines.Another press of the remote button revealed a new slide appearing in the shape of a star slowly overtaking the old slide, this one titled “Possible Solutions".
“Now what can we do about that problem?," asked Chuck Grizzly. “Some people say we could put an oil rig on the moon, but that's ludicrously expensive! You would have to buy a space rocket, some astronauts, and then how would we even send the oil back here?” More grumbles emerged from the audience. “Some people say we could start driving electric cars, which are already on the market, but let me tell you once again: Hippies. That’s what hippies are saying.” The people in the room couldn't help but nod. “But what if we could create more oil?” Chuck pressed the button again, bringing in a new slide. This one had the caption “What is oil?" in glittery red across a stock image of an old-time oil field, with the black liquid shooting in the air like a geyser.
“Now the trouble with creating more oil is that, as we all know, oil is made from dead dinosaurs.” For the first time skepticism could be read on the faces of some of the people present.
“Are you sure about that information?," asked Margaret. “That seems like a terribly unscientific notion."
This wasn't the first time that Chuck Grizzly had to deal with people who were lukewarm to his ideas, and he knew just the right thing to say. “I am certain," he answered. “I read it on the internet.” People were looking at each other, but no one wanted to speak up. The internet is so big. Who knows what’s on there?'' The reply was enough to silence any doubters.
“Now, as I understand it, millions of years ago, dinosaurs died and were buried under ten thousand feet of rocks and sediments. The bacteria present in the ground as well as the pressure at that depth transformed the decaying remains into a sludge which we call petroleum. Simple enough, isn't it?” It was indeed simple when explained in such a throwaway manner, and no one dared question his explanation. “I am sure that, by now, you can all see the bug in this machine. It's the dinosaurs. If we want to create more oil, we still have the bacteria, and we definitely have at least ten thousand feet of rocks and sediments in this country. What we don’t have, however, is dinosaurs.”
The usually receptive crowd, one which had bought the idea of a waterproof toaster without second thoughts, was becoming restless. “Of course we don’t have dinosaurs, Chuck" said Rodger, rubbing his bald head to a perfect shine. “Dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago, son. This is all fine and dandy, but that won’t help us create more oil.”
“Maybe…," started Margaret, “maybe what he is trying to say is that he found a process to work around the traditional “dead dinosaur” model of oil-making. Maybe some kind of process to make synthetic petroleum?."
“That would certainly make sense,” acquiesced a yes-man sitting next to her.
Chuck smiled, knowing that the upcoming revelation would floor his audience with its simplicity, like a tsunami of science and self-evidence. “Oh no, I did not find a process to fabricate synthetic petroleum.” Chuck pressed the button on the remote one more time, revealing a final slide to his Powerpoint presentation. “What I did find, however, is more dinosaurs.”
The slide had the word “DINOSAURS” written in capital letters and bold font across an image of a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a Triceratops. Chuck had hoped it would be both inspiring and aggressive, the same way he tried to mold his entire strategy on this project. Proud of his presentation, he opened up his arms and looked eagerly at each in every one of the people in the room, as if to say “Isn't this a great idea? Don’t you wish you thought of something like that first?” A man coughed awkwardly in the corner, unintentionally breaking the silence. Rodger shuffled in his chair at the far end of the table before speaking up.
“Are you talking about synthetic dinosaurs, Chuck? Is that what I’m understanding?”
“No sir”, firmly replied Chuck. “The dinosaurs are real dinosaurs.”
“Chuck, we have known each others for a while now, haven’t we?”
“Sure we have," answered Chuck.
“Then you will forgive me if I am a bit blunt here?”
“Of course, Rodger. I would expect nothing less.” affirmed Chuck.
“This is… this is goddamn amazing. This here is life changing is what it is.”
“And that’s why I brought it to your attention," finished Chuck. “Because I respect you that much.” The two men exchanged nods of appreciation. “Any questions?”
Margaret was less enthused. Confusion and doubt were visible on her face, though she was doing her best to appear confident. “I am sorry but where exactly did you get this information about dinosaurs being still alive?”
Chuck put the remote down on the table, as if his response was going to be so breathtaking that he was going to need both hands to articulate it. “Well, my assistant called me a few days ago talking about a documentary he had seen where all kinds of scientists, like paleontologists, mathematicians and so on, went to this island off the coast of Costa Rica.” Chuck was having trouble containing his excitement, his hands almost shaking. “Apparently, a team of geneticists there managed to clone dinosaurs from blood they found in a fossilised mosquito. I couldn't believe it myself when I heard it, but he showed me parts of the documentary! That's the truth! And yet, it’s not even the best thing he told me.” Chuck tilted his head forward, as if milking the expectations of his audience.
“Please, go on," said Rodger.
“Get this," continued Chuck. “They abandoned the dinosaurs on the island. All of the dinosaurs! They gave up on the project, and left the whole place vacant. The dinosaurs are there, by themselves, like apples ready to be picked from the tree, and nobody is even trying to go there. Those dinosaurs are a gold mine, and they’re waiting for you, if you decide to follow through with the plan.”
“Then what is the plan?” asked a man who was painfully trying to mask his excitement.
“The plan is as follows. You go to the island and capture the dinosaurs. You might need to hire a team of adventurers/hunters in order to make this work. I personally know Bear Grylls, as we play squash together on Sundays, so I could put in a word for you if you so choose.” The name dropping worked, as the audience collectively let out a whispered “ooooooooooooh” in satisfaction. “You then bring the dinosaurs here, where you will have to place them in a hole that you will need to dig ten thousand feet deep.”
“Why ten thousand feet deep?”, asked Margaret. “Why is it so important?”
Chuck was shaken, but answered to the best of his ability.
“The depth is important because it is the only point where the pressure can… heat up the dinosaur remains, as it's obviously closer to the earth’s core, which is lava. The heat then stimulates the bacteria, or convinces it, if you will, to eat the dinosaurs, huh, electrons, and transform the whole thing into sludge.”
“Oh I see”, pointedly noted Margaret.
“You then wait a year or two for the pressure, bacteria, and everything else to do their magic, dig back, and bip bop bam, you got yourself some petroleum.”
“It’s that simple?” asked another man?
“It’s that simple," emphasized Chuck.
“Isn't it a bit unethical to bury dinosaurs alive?” inquired the same man, looking uncertain like somebody who has just ordered the chef’s salad at Waffle House.
“Well, you should probably kill the dinosaurs first,” countered Chuck, as serious as he had ever been in his life. “They’ll put up less of a fight that way. Otherwise they might try to claw their way back up the hole. Except for the T-Rex, whose arms are much too short for climbing, but you don’t want to take the risk.”
“Excuse me," politely said one of the women present, “but how does one kill a dinosaur? Has it even been tried before?”
“According to the documentary, the Triceratops can be poisoned by some kind of plants which they will instinctively ingest.” The people looked impressed with Chuck Grizzly’s apparently encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs. “As for the others, I will personally put together a team to investigate the best course of action when it comes to subduing each and every species. But you know what Confucius once said: if it bleeds, we can kill it.”
The room fell silent. Some of the people around the table exchanged glances, telling each other everything they needed to know with a simple stare. Rodger, being the elder of the group, spoke again, saying what was on everybody else’s mind. “How early can we get this thing going?”
Chuck looked at the man straight in the eye, as if hypnotizing him with cool confidence. “If you sign the contract, we can get this on the rails by next Monday.”
The president stared right back. “Chuck?”
“Yes sir?”
“You’re a goddamn genius, Chuck.”
“Thank you sir.”
The man at the end of the table stood up and buttoned up his jacket. Under the deafening applause of his colleagues, he adjusted his bow tie and walked over to Chuck, and vigorously shook his hand. Chuck looked at the adoring crowd and gave them a thumbs up with his other hand. Rodger then walked over to the entrance of the room, opened the door, and shouted at his secretary, who was sitting at a desk at the end of the corridor.
“Natalie, get some champagne in here! And a cake!”
Natalie wrote down the requests on her notepad. “Right away, sir.”
“We’re also going to need some streamers and some balloons to celebrate this properly. Maybe some pretzels.”
“Of course sir.”
“Isn't your brother a DJ too? Get him in here so we can have a proper party. Ask him for the “wub wub” music the kids like so much.”
“Absolutely sir” said Natalie, writing at breakneck speed to keep up with the demands.
“Can we also get some strippers? Both male and female. Some whipped cream too. We never know.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir."
“And hell, please call my friend Jack at the Chevy dealership. You get a brand new car! Everybody gets a car! We’re all going to be that much richer very soon.”
The secretary beamed at Rodger, wiping a single tear from her eye. “Sir, this is the best day of my life.”
“Me too," replied the president. “Me too.”
“Absolutely sir” said Natalie, writing at breakneck speed to keep up with the demands.
“Can we also get some strippers? Both male and female. Some whipped cream too. We never know.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir."
“And hell, please call my friend Jack at the Chevy dealership. You get a brand new car! Everybody gets a car! We’re all going to be that much richer very soon.”
The secretary beamed at Rodger, wiping a single tear from her eye. “Sir, this is the best day of my life.”
“Me too," replied the president. “Me too.”
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