Apple Has A Cougar Problem
The first step, as with any Apple product reveal, is the highly anticipated keynote speech. The CEO approaches the podium, nonchalant like it’s any other day, but matching his nonchalance is a cougar, and a big one at that. They trot out like two Oscar hosts, ignoring the screams and flashes of light from the crowd. It must be a hologram, some kind of illusion, but the best tricks are the ones without deception; where the impossible really happens. Nobody listens as the CEO says, “Many in this room right now are laughing—they can’t believe what they’ve just seen. I have with me Sasha, a lovely animal, who, as I’m sure you all know, was part of a group that caused us a bit of a headache back in February.” He pauses for laughter, smiling and scanning the room, “I have her with me up here on stage to help announce, what I think, is going to be Apple’s most revolutionary product yet…”
In Cupertino, the sun rose to introduce another balmy morning. The CEO rose from his desk, leaving crumpled shareholder reports and blueprints in their disarray. He had no time for these things. It was February, but the sun couldn’t have shined any brighter. As he stood, the sun illuminated his stubble and greying hair. The previous night was long, but longer has been his search for Apple’s next innovation. He pulled back the blinds, squinting towards the East and the resplendent view that his penthouse office affords. In the distance, a lone figure approached with the rising sun, an unfamiliar presence. The CEO squinted his eyes, further attempting to see what so swiftly approached the Apple headquarters. It was a solitary cougar, a confused passerby wandering the desert. He watched as it was drawn toward the asylum of the verdant Apple Campus. He smiled, watching it stretch its lean physique and display its formidable teeth. This brush with animal power, this is the strength he needs, a model he aspires to. As he considers the animal’s might, three more approach from the horizon. In two weeks the campus will be overrun.
Inside the parking complex, mountain lions leapt out from behind midsize SUVs, reducing them to meager Smart Cars beside their imposing stature. Some of them are almost eight feet long from tip to tail, weighing upwards of 150 pounds. As their numbers climbed, their broad-shouldered gait increasingly mirrored the poise of a confident strut, the same swagger of a senior football star marching onto the playing field. Some sniffed at the circular black trash cans adjacent to the Teslas and BMWs, their claws sliding off the polished metal’s sheen, toppling them in their clumsy curiosity sending heavy lids flying with a clatter that echoed through the many floors of empty vehicles. They craned their necks to sift through the rubbish, eventually locating their prey, plunging their canines into gluten-free chicken wraps and turkey burgers.
But living off scraps is unbecoming to a Puma Concolor Couguar and they soon began to miss the thrill of the hunt. Mostly active before dusk and after dawn they congregated around the front entrance, crossing their paws one over the other in a practiced show of comfort, settling on the stone steps. Like a new fledgling group of interns they were wary of each other at first; more used to a solitary lifestyle. But from the third-story windows, the programmers pressed their noses against the glass to see the pumas touch their moist noses together, which, in any other context, could have been described as “kinda cute.” It was from those same windows that Jeremy, the intern, witnessed a mountain lion chase a deer through the middle of the campus quad and dig its claws into the deer’s spinal column. When Jeremy recounted what he had seen to the other interns at lunch, he found himself suddenly without any appetite for his microgreens. The next day there was no seat for him at the intern’s table.
And later that day, as Jeremy was ordered to go out to Starbucks and pick up a few Venti’s, the CEO again brooded by his broad window. As Jeremy’s caution was more than enough to get him into Starbuck’s and through the line, it was unfortunately not quite enough to get him back. The CEO pushed his hands against the glass as several cougars followed behind Jeremy unseen. Jeremy’s internal organs were quickly made external and his blood was revealed to the world. The two culprits lapped their paws and carried the corpse away from the crime scene. And as they sauntered off they stopped suddenly, almost as though they were aware of their being watched. They turned and craned their necks towards the penthouse, gazing right at the CEO. He pushed off the glass in shock before returning their stares. And as the two parties stared at each other, separated by a few hundred feet, two more cougars snuck up from behind them and snatched what was left of Jeremy the intern’s corpse right out of their mouths.
In a state of feline curiosity, these anachronistic refugees began nibbling and pawing at the other bespectacled, beheadphoned techies, spilling their blood onto the porous asphalt and causing screams heard all the way from the vending machines to the CEO’s office. While instinctive and good-natured, these playful bites included 1½-inch long canines; sharp enough to slice through muscle and tendon, and up to 350 PSI of undisciplined jaw strength; enough to crush a horse’s skull.
One executive, his mind weary and his appetite strong, rushed to leave at the end of his long day. He’d somnambulantly pushed through several meetings, a sexual harassment seminar, a focus group, multiple PowerPoint presentations, and one angry lecture from the CFO that ended with the phrase, “Also, next time, could you please make these margins 3/8ths of an inch wider?” He exited the front entrance, his gaze focused not unlike a cougar’s tunnel vision in sight of prey. Maybe he was in such a rush because he knew his wife, Heather, had just put the finishing touches on a “special surprise,” which was really not a surprise at all, but the same linguine alla carbonara that she made every time he asked for a “special surprise tonight” and which grew colder and colder, left uneaten on the kitchen table that night. And maybe the cougars had also lapsed into a stupor from loitering around, daydreaming about the possibility of life returning to something they once knew. Maybe they had both lost sight of reality, both slaves to the boredom that so gently erases the animal soul from within. Regardless, the pumas sprung from their reverie, tearing into flesh and khaki in a flurry of claws and screams. They savored the few seconds of chase that almost reminded them what it was like back at the Monte Bello Preserve, barreling down a dusty arroyo at 50 MPH in pursuit of a solicitous doe and her fawns.
This and many similar incidents became infrequent as entry areas were closed off and subverted to the rear of the complex through the use of neon-yellow police tape. After many memos were distributed, it became a common sight to see people hurriedly shuffling through their messenger bags in search of noise-making devices (air horns, pots and pans, the louder the better). Biking to work, formerly a popular form of transportation because of its carbon-emission-reducing, fat-burning abilities, was no longer an option, so motorcycles became a more masculine alternative. Fraternizing in the open-air quad of the Apple campus was just as ill-advised, quickly replaced by shuttered windows and locked doors, cold hearts and stern looks. Despite the precautions, the cougars returned faithfully to crouch under benches and bushes, waiting for unsuspecting FedEx deliverymen who, lost in the anesthetizing trance of their phones, delivered themselves right to their hungry mouths and claws. The final straw was when the CFO’s dog got off its leash.
They were flown in around lunch, practically salivating at the sight of the polychromatic black and white buggies with built-in infra-red tracking systems and intercommunication devices, all part of Apple’s exemplary accommodations. No mountain lion stood a chance against the top big cat wranglers in the country, a measure some might call unsportsmanlike—probably someone who’s never had to shoot anything with 1½-long canines. The weapon of choice was the Dan-Inject brand CO2 Injection Rifle; specifically designed for machine-like precision and humane inoculation. The weapons of true 21st century warriors. Each gun carries a history with it; a history of escaped celebrities’ pets, a history of zoo animals snatching children of negligent mothers, a history of red-tipped darts shot into cougar’s rear-ends (the industry-agreed prime location for ensuring rapid inoculation and minimal structural damage). Each member sheathed their lime-green weapon—a finish reminiscent of their human-killing counterparts—in a dull brown sash, neatly unpacking and assembling them in under a minute, all while maintaining an expression not unlike the sober gaze of an assembly line worker. Encircling their chests, in Pancho Villa-esque bandoliers, were twelve syringe-loaded darts with red fluffy stabilizers, each one loaded with a ketamine-diazepam cocktail strong enough to knock out a full-grown human in one accidental prick.
In a scene resembling some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland, the wranglers fired haphazardly from their buggies as they tore up the campus quad with headstrong tires. A protective mother and her cubs were cornered by the mess hall, caged and relegated to a nondescript van minutes later. A dying grandmother, exiled by her family, could put up little resistance as a dart entered the sagging meat of her buttocks. Animal-like yelling echoed through the deserted campus as the celebrations commenced with a round of Budweisers. In the following days, “Apple: Cats Got Their Tongue no More,” was one cat pun of thousands made in newspapers across the country as the nation’s eyes rested on Cupertino.
Apple had transformed a cougar problem into a cougar surplus. But what to do with 2,300 ravenous mountain lions; anywhere from approximately 30 to 50% of California’s total pumas? 2,300 cougars seemed an impossible number, close to Cupertino’s founding population, but the final tally surpassed it, landing precisely at 2,326. In the board-room, the CEO entered to hear this number thrown his way, chanted in droning abundance as the competing voices and opinions personified the entropic minds at work.
“I’m thinking we Disnify the Hell out of them. Do the whole theme park. With 2,300 cougars we can really merchandize the little shits. Cougar plushes, cougar rides, cougar snacks…Cougar Town, we gotta get that trademarked.”
The conference room itself contained a cage, almost like a massive birdcage, which housed a single angry mountain lion. Her name was Sasha, given to her by the CEO, and she was the first puma captured by the wranglers, a living souvenir. The crystalline shutters—hand-crafted by legendary Chinese glassmaker Zhu Yuhuan—reflected prismatically against the eight-foot long stainless (emphasis on stainless) steel bars situated adjacent to the windows, making the only possibility of escape via 12-story drop. Anyone who leaned too far back in their chair could count on a lacerated back and a grin on Sasha’s face.
“John, you don’t know what the Hell you’re talking about, we need to do the right thing here. I was watching the Discovery Channel last night and it got me thinking, what if we use ‘em to fix this drought? You should see the kind of stuff these guys are capable of. We train ‘em to find underground sources of water and we’ll be the saviors of California!”
Each idea was picked apart, pro’d and con’d, written and rewritten. Shouting and fist-flying commenced as mother’s reputations were challenged, personal vendettas revived, and extramarital affairs revealed, all in the struggle for one voice to come out on top. That is, until the CEO sat up from his chair and addressed the room.
“What a magnificent creature, can we all agree on this?” He stared at Sasha, “A relic born from long-forgotten nightmares. These are the kinds of creatures past civilizations could only dream of. The Incas, the Moche people, the Ho-Chunk, and the Cheyenne. They found its cry so fearful, so eerily similar to a woman being murdered…but they believed the call to be death itself and we meager men have captured it! The apex predator! The top of the food chain.” He’d leapt from his chair and frantically paced the room, “This beautiful creature, Sasha, who would not pay top dollar just to lay their eyes on her?”
“…so you do want to make a theme park?”
“John, you’re so short-sighted. We are Apple Incorporated! We’re expected to revolutionize everyday life, not fabricate another distraction in a world benumbed by it. I’m talking about putting a relic from times long past right in people’s living rooms. We’ve already got the cougar handlers on the payroll, let’s domesticate them, wrap them up in some fancy packaging, an Apple cage, and sell them; a reminder of man’s long-lost ambitions, a life forgotten to this century’s ineffectual humanity…”
“But can you actually domesticate them? If they’re really so powerful as you say, wouldn’t they be just as violent—”
“John! That’s for the handlers to figure out. Haven’t you any use for me?”
John stumbles out of the room and the rest begin to initiate the affectionately-titled; “Mountain Lion 2.0.” The handlers in charge of taming the untamable rightfully questioned their mission. They balked at the notion that the mountain lion could be proselytized to conform to a domestic human lifestyle. These concerns were silenced by a much larger check.
Each cougar, like Number 1,345, its name branded into the meat above its coccyx, was required to prove it could seamlessly integrate into human existence by relinquishing its animal nature and enduring routines of minutia, the same daily tragedies we must all endure. If they displayed any sign of displeasure after being put on hold by a telemarketer, Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws, their toast landing butter side down, daytime television, drivers without E-Z passes in the E-Z pass lane, and having a meddlesome little piece of sticky tape stuck on their finger that passes from finger to finger instead of falling off then they would have to endure it all over again. After six months only two cougars, Number 1,487 and Number 2,215, failed the tests and the rest were allowed move on. The two delinquents were released back into the wilderness, tagged and neutered to prevent their violent genes from spreading. As they were released from a shabby crate and shooed back towards the mountains from which they came, they turned their heads and looked deep into the wrangler’s eyes. The horrors they endured still engraved in their memories, they shed two tears; one for the loss of their own, and one for humanity, for God would impart upon the humans no forgiveness.
“Apple, since the dawn of time, has found ways to innovate the way we live our lives,” the CEO looked around at the audience as a screen descended from the ceiling, as if from the heavens. “Communication,” an iPhone appeared on the screen, “Television,” an Apple TV, “Work,” the original Macintosh, “Music,” an iPod, “Almost anything you can think of has been made easier and reflected the ever-changing world because of Apple. But today I’m very excited because I get to show you our latest world-changing product, and it’s been right in front of you this whole time.” Confused mumbles echoed throughout the room as the screen ascended back to the heavens. “Sasha, if would you be so kind, take ten paces forward please?” Sasha looked up at the CEO, blinking once, before executing his command and walking exactly ten paces forward. “Thank you Sasha, that was terrific. Let’s all give Sasha a round of applause.” A few people complied, but their claps were amplified by the room’s dumbfound silence. “Oh Sasha, I don’t think they’re impressed. Why don’t we show them what you’ve learned? Can you…roll over for me?” She executed his command. “Wonderfully intelligent creatures, and I repeat, there is no danger involved.”
“Can you high five?” She executed his command and the crowd chuckled and typed.
“Catch the ball?” She executed his command and the crowd gasped.
“Show me your teeth?” She executed his command, baring her fangs to the audience’s guilty screams.
“Now Sasha, I want you to—see that man over there, in the fourth row? Yes, sir, you with the blue vest, no don’t stand up it’s alright,” A tech blogger from Gizmodo was pointing at himself in disbelief, his eyes like two blue balloons. “Don’t worry, she’ll come to you. Sasha, please find that man’s phone and bring it to me here.” Sasha executed his command, sending laptops and notebooks flying as she pounced into the audience. Screams rang out as she nuzzled into the man’s left-front pocket and pulled out his iPhone, snatching it in her teeth and carrying it back onto the stage like a mother cat carrying its newborn kitten by the scruff.
“What an animal, huh? Let’s have another big round of applause for Sasha.” Only a few people were lucid enough to obey his suggestion. Most of the journalists scanned the ceiling and walls for evidence of some trickery. “One last thing Sasha,” she glared at him. “Would you mind returning his iPhone?” The CEO laughed with too much teeth as Sasha executed his command, cradling the reporter’s phone delicately, “See, everybody, perfect morality. That’s what we do, Sasha, when we find something that doesn’t belong to us.”
Alongside the domestication process, the award winning design team was tasked with engineering a cage suitable to both the cougar’s needs and the consumer’s expectations. Some preliminary designs took the shape of a large hamster ball intended to stimulate the cougar’s exercise, while other sketches included a pyramidal carbon-fiber structure, a lush pillowed cube, and even a larger, cougar-shaped enclosure. The final concept is a ghost-white exoskeletal enclosure with oblong cylindrical bars and ostensibly simple machinery. At eight-feet wide by ten-feet long, there’s more than enough room for the mountain lions’ impressive prominence. The cage was to be remotely upgradable with continued updates and support included in the “Puma Package” for only $19.95 per month. iCage subscriptions were projected to exceed 95% of retail units by the third quarter. Complete with built-in automated food and water delivery and waste disposal systems, it is quite simply the cage of the future—a cage that could ease tranquility from even the most anxious claustrophobe.
On the marketing team’s side of things, the usually simple formula for selling an Apple product had proven fruitless. The team—led by Jansen Johansen, the foremost advertising innovator in the world and the meanest Dane you could ever meet—was more used to marketing products that don’t bite. That, coupled with the obviously limited inventory, meant they had to put together an ad campaign that would shock the world into accepting this product as not just a distraction for the elite, but a necessity.
And just like that, the moment has arrived. October 29th, National Cat Day. Those with disposable income have been outside the Apple store for more than eight days hoping they will be one of the first 10 to 20 people in line. This first edition of Mountain Lion is projected to double its resale value in only three months, but this is not why they will be sold out day one. If deemed successful, Apple will begin a breeding program, replenishing California’s now-depleted cougar population with a docile supply and affording millions of Americans on waiting lists the ability to purchase their very own second-edition Mountain Lion 2.0.
The commercial begins with a family; normal by any standards, but what they’re doing is far from it. They’re in the living room. They’re all talking with each other. There’s not a device to be seen! Is this some preemptive glimpse into time pre-electric or some post-apocalyptic nightmare of technological drought? The father smiles at his son. It’s trance-like and bristling with excitement, father and son huddled around something that’s enraptured their senses. Laughing and laughing, losing all restrictions, all sense of agency they may have previously possessed, trading elbows and exchanging glances that induce anticipation. One assumes Apple is merely entering the profitable video game industry or maybe investing in an old-fashioned board game, but the family’s cries of pleasure are unnerving, almost salacious, growing unbearable—like an unopened package lying out on the front steps. Jump cut to an abandoned city, grey filter, and a solitary puma strolls through the desolate streets. A child’s voice whispers, “From the streets of chaos…” and then it jump cuts back to the turbulent family revealing that the voice belonged to the son whose ecstatic expression breaks from the living-room bedlam and faces the camera head-on, “to the home.” They air the same day with a simple tagline, “Experience the power of nature, from the comfort of the home.” This provocative statement is soon inescapable: TV ads, billboards, posters, the phrase becomes synonymous with Apple’s induction into advertising history.
On this day, in stores across America, a select group of 2,324 people have the privilege to welcome a new family member into their homes. A majority of Americans are waking up to the reality that their home does not contain a personalized cougar and iCage—just a sad fern and a bookshelf where an iCage could be. They wish they could experience the same joy that Eric and Judy Fassel are sharing at this very moment, witnessing their only son Timmy, meet his new lifelong companion.
“Timmy, come in here! We’d like you to meet somebody.”
Timmy shuffles in, expecting another arranged play date, another pale, leaky-nosed neighborhood kid he’ll have to share his Xbox with, another whiny boy he’ll have to let win. But tucked in the corner is a giant present, the biggest Timmy has ever seen.
“Woah! What is it?”
“Well son, why don’t you unwrap it and find out.” Eric smiles at them all. Judy; his loving wife, Timmy; his darling son, and Grover; their cherished Pomeranian. Grover, the little cotton ball of a dog, vibrates in place, letting out small borks of glee. Timmy runs across the reflective marble floor of their Tudor Revival living room, nearly tripping over the dog and a coffee table in the process.
“Sweetie, please be careful. You never look where you’re going. Mommy just cleaned the—“
“Honey!” Eric snaps at Judy, “Timmy, open it up.”
Timmy needs no permission to tear into the shimmering wrapping, revealing the cage and cougar within. “Woaaahh!” Timmy’s eyes sparkle as a smile more brilliant than a spotlight sneaks across his face. “A big kitty! Is this a friend for Grover?”
“And for you, sport. This family,” he looks at Judy whose mouth has deformed into a snarl, “has just added another member.”
“Babe, can I speak with you in the kitchen?”
“Of course. Timmy, why don’t you think of a good name for her and introduce her to Grover,” Eric says as Judy pulls him into the kitchen.
“Are you sure we can afford this? I saw what these things cost online, even the most basic model starts at—“
“Not now! Not today!” he says through clenched teeth, “This is for Timmy, okay? For us!”
Meanwhile, they hear Timmy call from the living room, “Mommy! Daddy! Do you know where Grover went?” But they ignore his question.
“Oh yeah, if it’s really for us then why didn’t you tell me, huh? We’re going to have to take out a second mortgage!”
“I see. Now all of a sudden you care about this family’s money. Not last weekend when you spent $300 at Sephora. Not when I bought you the Benz. Now you do. So, I guess that means you’ll be looking for a job, huh?”
“God damn it Eric, there’s only so much I can take from you” she says, pouring bourbon into a snifter, “I want to know when you do things like this. How long did you stop and think before you pulled the trigger, a day? two? I bet it wasn’t even a day—“
“Oh stop it, you’re embarrassing yourself—“
“I bet it wasn’t even an hour. The second you thought about Timmy, that’s when it was set in stone. I swear, that crap about it being a ‘friend for the whole family.’ ”
“And how long do you think you would have lasted without one? I made the purchase. Maybe you haven’t come around to her yet, but C’est La Vie. I knew you’d cave before long. And I heard Drew was getting one for Alice.”
Judy lowers her glass, “Oh really, and how would you know that, did he tell you?”
“Well, maybe I wasn’t just doing this for Timmy after all, huh? I heard he was taking out a loan—don’t know a bank stupid enough to give that dipshit a loan, do you?”
“No,” she smiled, “I don’t. I think I may casually mention our new whatever-its-name-is to her at our next book club meeting.”
“There you go, Honey. I’m glad you’re warming up to her. Trust me honey, she’s state of the art! She’ll be good for the family and she’ll teach Timmy responsibilities.”
“You’re right Eric. I just wish you’d tell me about these things before doing them.”
“From now on, I promise. No more secrets.”
“I love you baby, come here,” she says, smiling and narrowing her eyes.
They kiss and embrace as Eric’s legs slide in between Judy’s, pushing her up against the marble sink top. As Eric’s hand reaches down they hear Timmy shout something from the living room.
“What was that?” Eric yells, pulling his hand up to his face.
“I said she’s hugging me! And her claws are so sharp—“