If I were an Entrepreneur. . .

First, like any good story writer, I must give you the background story:

The East coast of the US and various areas in the middle parts of America are a full month into being pummeled by the throes of Father Winter's frigid wrath. What this can translate into, for the uninitiated, is sub-zero (that's Fahrenheit) temperatures, white-out driving conditions, and half-inch-thick ice covering everything from cars door locks to telephone wires to red-ripe fruit still hanging on to branch-tips with the tenacity of a small and vicious dog's clinging to an unwanted visitor's trouser cuff. Unfortunately, the powers that be do not cancel the world and it's incessant needs during such treacherous outdoor conditions. They can't really, for in certain parts of this vast and complicated country, such heinous weather lasts for months at a time, and allowing people to use the truly valid excuse of completely unsafe driving conditions as a reason to stay home from work could hypothetically ground all productivity, and even worse - all consumption - to a definitive halt. Yikes. How very un-American.

To battle this need for continued rat racing and good consuming, areas that are accustomed to such intense (and deplorable) weather conditions have management techniques in place. Plow trucks, salt trucks and sand trucks are among the most commonly used methods to battle the icy conditions that cause countless vehicle pile-ups and excruciatingly long commutes for those rueful rats racing to and fro all the livelong day. But there's one massive problem with those problem solvers. And that is. . .if the temperature drops much below freezing, (that's 32 degrees Fahrenheit), they are completely useless. That's right. When ice is falling from the sky, pummeling everything in sight, rendering electricity outages across miles of cityscape and leading to many an old-lady breaking her hip, those salt trucks are no good. No good at all.

So, what to do? What to do? Well, several cities have proposed an interesting new solution in recent years. That being. . .beet juice. You heard me right. Plain-old sticky-sweet sugar-beet juice. Reports would have you believe that it works like a god-sent miracle, melting even the thickest of ice off streets and highways with a quickness not seen since the senior Earnhardt dominated the NASCAR scene. So why isn't it used all over the frozen land? Why do massive swaths of American landscape remain locked under fractions of inches of treacherous solid water while the salt trucks sit idly in their service vehicle parking lots? Because beet juice is a little bit stinky, a tad bit sticky, and worst of all. . . a deep, dark, staining red.

People can't stand that the juice dyes the tires of their cars. And the sidewalks of their streets. And the soles of their shoes. It's red, it's vegetable juice, and it goes nowhere very very slowly. So this is where my entrepreneurial spirit (which I didn't previously know I had) bucks up and gets very excited. I have the perfect solution ,and it will make me scads of money (uhmm, and I'll be helping lots of people be safe and stuff which is really good, too. cough).

Have you ever read the series of children's books written by James Howe? If you haven't, I highly suggest you get on that, and quick. At any rate, the stories are all very cheeky and pseudo-scary, and center around a strange little rabbit named Bunnicula. The vampire rabbit. With clever titles like, "The Celery Stalks at Midnight," Howe details the antics of this juice-sucking vampiro-bunny as he hops from garden to garden, depriving the root vegetables in each row of their distinct colors and striking fear into the hearts of every subterranean tuber.

Well, if you don't see the obvious connection here than you're apparently not quite awake. This is what makes this idea so deliciously brilliant. First step is, I procure some nice fertile, open land and plant some beet seeds. Next, I hunt down Bunnicula (he's not hard to find when one follows the country's only trail of colorless rutabaga) and win him over with my personality, cheesy jokes, and stockpile of veggie juice. He'll be as juiced up as an alcoholic at an Irish-Catholic Christmas party. Then, I breed him to create a whole army of vampire bunnies. I will name them things like Incubunnyus and Lehoppystat, and we will all be friends. I will keep them sated with bulk v8 supplies procured from CostCo as I hatch part three of the plan: tend those beets on my beet farm and start weaning the fanged little furry fiends off their myriad juices and get their juice-lust honed in on the money-pot. . .sweet, sweet beet juice.

Once their thirst for the thick red nectar is insatiable, and their fangs drip and glisten in the moonlight with their desire for a fresh kill, I will release my army of vampire bunnies into the rows of juicy beets. I won't watch the carnage; my cruelty only goes so far. But once they have had their way with the heart-shaped roots, I will reap what I have sewn; I will harvest the red-juice-depleted vegetables, and press them for their remaining sweet nectar. This red-free beet juice will descend like a savior on the winter-embattled citizens of the land, bringing them freedom and traction and paths to productivity/consumption they never before imagined during the coldest of seasons.

And that is my plan. And I know it's ridiculous. And I don't care :)