Why I don't own an iPad or an iPad 2.

The iPad was released the other day and I couldn't be more excited.  I pulled up my britches (pants) and fastened my trousers (sandals) and charted a course for our local Apple Store.

I hadn't gone but a half mile when I realized an unfortunate truth: I had no money and no hope of obtaining money.  I thought, "Well, this just ain't fair! (I think in hillbilly, but talk normally. It's a condition.) The only people that get to buy an iPad 2 are people that have money?  There should be a way for a moneyless man like me to get an iPad 2 without any money."

It was then that I realized, there was a way!

I returned home, opened my laptop and jumped into my spam folder, Facebook and Twitter.  I entered thousands upon thousands of queries and contests entitled "Win a free iPad!" That was three days ago.  I still don't have my iPad 2.  However, I do think that my identity has been stolen by a goat farmer in Naples and I've had to create a new, overflow spam folder for my spam folder.  (I'm thinking goat farmer because the other day my American Express was charged for something called "nipple clamps".)

Penniless and without any luck in the fake, online iPad contest industry, I decided to get my iPad 2 the old fashioned way: I would steal it from some punk kid.  

My plan was to hide in a bush on the side of our house.  As Junior High students would walk past our home, I would jump out with a Freddy Krueger mask on and scare them into oblivion.  Their terror would make them shake so fiercely that the contents of their backpacks would simply flop onto the sidewalk, allowing me to snag their iPod 2's and gallop jubilantly into my garage. 

It was a fail-proof plan and I would have gotten away with it too, if I could have found the Freddy Krueger mask from my 8th grade Halloween costume. It was all for naught anyway. I talked to a Junior High student a couple days ago and she assured me that most kids her age don't just have an iPad in their backpack.  Back to the drawing board. 

So I went inside and sat at my son's drawing board.  I always go back to that spot and stare at that stupid board whenever one of my fool-poof plans doesn't work out.  

As I stared at that board for the umpteenth time, I decided that my iPad plan had failed because it was a stupid idea.  I thought about what number umpteenth might be and if it was a magical number.  And then I admired the pirate ship my son had been drawing and I wondered why he had labeled the women on the ship "whores".  That concerned me a little.  He is four.

My drawing board plans were not working out to my satisfaction, so I decided it was time to start at square one. Fortunately, I have a hopscotch painted in my driveway and it was a warm day.  I went out and stood in square one for over an hour.  Eventually, a neighbor walked by and yelled, "Abe, why are you just standing there?"  I replied, "I'm trying to think of a way to get an iPad 2.  I thought I'd start at square one!" He just shook his head and laughed.  His name is George.  I've always hated George.

Everyone always says that you should start at square one, but this philosophy must have come from a square country like Australia or Mexico, where squares carry much more weight and value than in the United States. Plus, everyone always says you should think outside the box and as far as I know, square one is definitely box shaped.  

If you start at square one, you are not thinking outside the box because square one is box shaped.  I actually suggest starting at triangle two, because now you are thinking outside the box AND you have skipped square one altogether.  You are light years ahead of where you'd be if you had just started at square one.

This is a perfect example of out of the box thinking.

I don't even own a box right now.   I guess my house is a box of sorts - a box with a triangle top. My refrigerator is kind of a box too, but I never think inside my refrigerator.  Perhaps if I had thought inside my refrigerator, I could have thought of a way to get an iPad 2.  The cold would have forced me to think of something and think of something fast. Think quick... Gotta get out of this ice-cold box!

Maybe thinking inside the box is the new thinking outside of the box?  I think that some people that think outside of boxes are actually thinking, "How can I get back into that box?  If I could just get back in that box, I could think of ways to think outside of it?" If everyone on earth was thinking outside the box, wouldn't thinking inside the box be considered a lofty goal?

Do you see where I am going here?

Anyway, I have pretty much exhausted every idea I've had to get an iPad 2 and I now sit here typing this on my pathetic, boring MacBook.  So, if you'll excuse me, I need to start unloading my refrigerator.  I've got some serious thinkin' to do!