I’ve decided to start a club for pessimists.
I’m going to call it “The Pessimists Club.” It’s a terrific name – brief, clear and to the point. I think another club is already using the name, which gives me a great opportunity. I’ll call them up. We can merge, quickly creating the largest club of its kind in the country. With some hard work and a little luck, we’ll establish chapters in every major city and all 50 states. We’ll have power and influence – and as founder, I’ll be president. It’ll be great!
In truth, the power of this idea – the club for those who always look on the negative side of life – is so incredible that it almost doesn’t need members. But getting people to join will be easy. Just yesterday I was walking along the street and ran into an acquaintance.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What’re you up to?”
“I’m real excited. I just started a club for pessimists.”
“Cool. Can I join?”
Just like that.
I’ll charge a membership fee and monthly dues and people will flock in. I’ve already started talking to a PR firm. A few well-placed stories and some clever ads on radio and television and I figure we’ll have half a million members in a matter of weeks. And then there’s the web site. It’ll allow us to establish an international presence almost immediately, and why not? America doesn’t have a lock on pessimists. Why, I bet there are people all around the globe who tend to be gloomy and dismal, who always see the cup half empty. They need a place and there’s no place like The Pessimists Club!
And the meetings! We’ll hold them monthly, although it wouldn’t surprise me if some chapters want them weekly. And in between we’ll have our own blog and an on-line forum so members will never be far away from each other. We’ll have the meetings catered of course. No one wants to be dejected on an empty stomach. We’ll start off with the minutes, which should be terrific themselves because they’ll remind people just how great the last meeting was and so they’ll set the stage for this one. Then we’ll get into new business. There’s so much material out there! One of our members might have won the lottery and he’ll tell everyone how tough it is finding good domestic help. Another might talk about how it rained one day on his two-week vacation. A third might tell us about his kid getting into Harvard and Yale and having to figure out which was best. The stories will just keep on coming. We’ll probably keep on going until late in the evening, laughing and bantering and one-upping each other. It’ll be a great time and when we finally end the meeting we’ll all be looking forward to the next one.
Anyway, as I said, I’m starting a club for pessimists.