It was a sunny afternoon in March when she stopped by Woot’s creative offices. She said she was there to sell us ink cartridges for the office printer—but as it would happen, she also ushered our two wide-eyed interns into manhood. She called herself Elexa. What a vision! She was thin, but strong. Sophisticated, but sort of trashy. She did not give off too strong an odor of latex. Homer and Jake were no match for this seductress.

One at a time, she led them into our utility storage room—a room no one wants to go into anymore, thanks a lot Homer and Jake—and tutored them in the ways of physical love. But before she began, she asked each of them: “you don’t want me to be with child, do you?”

Homer and Jake both answered no. “In that case,” she said, “you’ll have to wear one of these.” And she produced reservoir-tipped prophylactics from America’s number one condom manufacturer, Trojan, a name that’s been trusted for over 80 years, though one hopes not by any single user continuously.

Then she thrilled and deflowered each of our interns in an order they determined by rock-paper-scissors. They’ll remember that day the rest of their lives—because when they left that utility storage room, they left their innocence behind. Along with like 15 reams of paper that no one wants to use anymore, since who knows what happened on it.

Homer and Jake didn’t speak to each other about that day for some time. Then, six weeks later, Jake turned to Homer in the middle of a big Fed-Ex envelope-stuffing project and asked “hey, you remember that ink saleslady? In the utility storage room?”

“Do I?” Homer said. “That was the most exciting 17 seconds of my life!”

“Me too,” Jake said. “But I’ve been thinking. Do you really care if she becomes ‘with child?’”

“I guess not especially,” Homer said.

“Me neither,” said Jake. “And seeing as how I don’t care that much—and you don’t care that much—what do you say we take these things off?”

And that’s why we have a seven-year supply of ink cartridges now, and why interns are no longer authorized to place purchase orders.

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