Considered by some to be a madman and others just a man, Corduroy Brown is a (mad)man of many ideas. When it comes to combining wit, function and incomprehensible blunders, he certainly takes the cake. But if he can’t finish it, he usually lets his dog have it with a screwdriver cocktail.
The following are the origins of Mr. Brown’s most prized creations, neither of whose societal contributions need be spelled out.
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Alphabet Soup ® While debating whether to plug in the toaster next to the refrigerator or microwave, Corduroy decided there had to be a better way to decide. So he put it off (as he always tended to do when confronted with negligible decisions).
Corduroy’s young son, Corduroy, not caring if the bread he was due to eat was soft, crispy or even edible, began to pour milk over it in a very precise fashion. That is, he took the cup and tipped it over.
The result? A Mess. Corduroy, having forgotten the task at hand, he was originally trying to teach the mechanics of a typewriter to a two-year-old, stumbled upon the scene of soggy bread and metal keys after relieving himself, mostly of unwanted earwax. For his part, Corduroy credited an obnoxious excess of electrical outlets for the jumpstart of his innovative career. And his parenting skills.
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The Greeting Card Only slightly less astounding than Corduroy’s ability to hurdle miniscule obstacles is his fortunate lack, to the point of formal training, of substantiated reasoning skills. One July 30, when little Corduroy (only by name) was the ripe age of 3 years and 168 days, big Corduroy sent a letter his son had written to Francis Scott Key.
In a series of ingenious strokes of luck, Corduroy failed to realize that, despite a steady diet of Alphabet Soup ®, Corduroy the younger was incapable of writing and had merely drawn a picture. For this reason, it was indiscernibly difficult to figure out who the letter was meant for. The elder Brown, fortunately, was quite deft when it came to reading the birthdays of famous cereal boxes off Americans. Er, when it came to reading the birthdays of famous Americans off cereal boxes.
In his haste to mail the letter, Corduroy licked the envelope and his son’s forehead, and attached twice the postage. You never know with postal rates. Having neither the slightest clue as to Francis Scott Key’s address nor the time to look for it, Corduroy tried his best to appease the unofficially official address formatting guidelines. He wrote as follows:
Francis
Scott
Key
The elder Brown, no less surprised to get the “letter” three days later than he was unaware he had sent it three days before, realized he hadn’t made a blunder. Although, without the encouragement of the mailman, who by this time was screaming “Hey buddy, I don’t know what it is, you can call it a greeting card for all I care” in exasperated anger, Corduroy would have never realized the full weight of his discovery.
The Stranger's Window 