Spranda Factory

Manhattan Beach – Flo Thompson of Redondo Beach was left in furious hysterics this morning when Hermosa Beach resident Sonny Kipgen dared to merge in front of her car.  The two’s unlikely meeting came via a detour on their regular route to work, which was shut down by police activity.  “I could see that cars were merging, so I got real close to the truck in front of me to make sure no one could get in, ” Flo explained, her jowels still quivering with rage.  “But when he kept rolling forward I had to stop.  What a fucking asshole!”

Kipgen laughed and danced a gleeful jig when asked to recount the story.  “Yeah I pulled in front of her.  We were merging.  God forbid one more car separate her from her destination.”  When Kipgen looked into his rear view mirror he saw Thompson, “pitching a fit.  Man, you would have thought that I just walked into her house and shit on her rug.  It was fucking hillarious!”

“He thought it was a big joke.  I could see him in his car laughing at me,” Thompson wailed.  “I don’t like cars getting in front of me!”

Kipgen seemed genuinely surprised at Thomson’s reaction.  “Man…all this over one car getting in front of you?  What is that…like two more seconds added to your commute?  Motherfuckers who don’t respect the zipper should take the bus.”

Los Angeles – City resident Sonny Kipgen finally found a good song to listen to on the radio after an epic forty-seven day search.  Kipgen reluctantly undertook his quest after listening to The Ramones, “Rocket to Russia” CD for the twenty second time in five days.  “I just couldn’t listen to ‘We’re a Happy Family’ one more time and was looking for a little variety,” Kipgen explained.  “I really didn’t plan on it being such a hassle.”  So began a quest that would drag on for over a month and a half as Kipgen filled his commutes with non-stop button mashing and channel surfing.  “I used to just listen to Indie 103.1, but then they turned into a lame KROQ knock-off and then, finally, left the air.  I also used to listen to KCRW, but with the economy in the tank that just got to be too damn depressing.”  The search finally came to an end this Friday afternoon when Kipgen stumbled upon Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped” on 95.5 KLOS.  “It was an incredible relief.  I was starting to worry that I might have to give Katy Perry a second look.”

Kipgen’s complaints have long been echoed by a majority of Los Angeles’s non-fourteen-year-old girl residents – a demographic prized by local advertisers for their often frivolous spending of weekly allowance money.  When asked about his ad buys on local top-forty station KIIS-FM, local Mercedes-Benz dealer Marc Dobic was quick to point out the station’s high ratings.  “A lot of people listen to that station.  Why would I buy ads on a station with lower ratings?”  When asked how many high school girls recently purchased a new Mercedes-Benz from his dealership, Dobic appeared confused.  “I don’t think any.  Why do you ask?”

Meanwhile, the city’s young professionals are left feeling largely ignored.  “There just isn’t anything out there for guys like me,” lamented 27 year old marketing executive Ethan Barclay of Irvine.  “I used to love KROQ when I was in high school, but if I hear one more Green Day song this week I’m going to drive my new Lexus into a wall.  I think I’m just going to buy an iPod adapter and satellite radio.  It’ll cost a few bucks but I’m a young, single professional  I’ve got plenty of money to spend right now.”

When asked if he would take up the search again next week, Kipgen could only shake his head in despair.  “If only I were an Akon fan.  Those people must be having a great year.”

Los Angeles – Drivers traveling northbound on the 405 freeway this morning were left in stunned disbelief when BMW enthusiast Steve Rensin, 33, engaged his turn-signal and checked his rear view mirror before changing lanes.  The move marks a deep break in policy with other Los Angeles area BMW owners, whose penchant for speeding and cutting off other drivers is well known.  “At first I thought he had accidentally hit his directional while reaching for his Blackberry,” witness Sonny Kipgen recalls.  “But then when I pulled along side of him he was just watching the road, driving with both hands on the steering wheel.  He even gave a thank-you wave to the car that let him in.  Amazing!”

Not everyone welcomed Rensin’s bold decision.  Witness and BMW owner Alex Cox was among those who did not approve.  “I was drinking my Latte and texting my assistant, to let her know that I was going to boot camp and would miss the staff meeting, when I see this asshole pull that stunt.  I thought maybe he had suffered a stroke or something and was going to wreck”  Cox credits his extreme speed with avoiding an accident.  “I was doing about seventy-seventy five which ain’t easy in rush-hour traffic.”  Asked if it was worth the risk of causing an accident or getting a ticket, Cox sounded incredulous.  “If I’m late for boot camp I have to do fifteen pushups so…you know.”

Los Angeles – Area temporary employee Sonny Kipgen’s productivity unexpectedly plunged eighty-five percent today when he became hopelessly distracted by the two-cent twist-tie that had once held his laptop power cable in a neat bundle.  “At first I thought I’d just get it as straight as I possibly could,” Kipgen explained.  “But then I started folding and bending it into all sorts of cool shapes.  It was really therapeutic.  I got a lot of thinking done.”  Kipgen avoided detection by sculpting the twist-tie with his left hand while pretending to negotiate an Excel spreadsheet with his right.  By the end of the day Kipgen was still mindlessly thumbing the tie.  “Honestly, at this point I wish to hell that someone would just come and take this damn thing away from me,” Kipgen complained.  “I just can’t bring myself to stop.”

A recent study conducted by the Institute for Office Supply Management found that an estimated $70 billion in worker productivity is lost nationally each year due to paper-clip straightening, twist-tie sculpting, and the clipping of binder clips to body parts.  “It’s a real epidemic,” commented Harvey Nakatsu who conducted the O.S.M. study.  “People are really hurting out there in those cubicles.  It’s easy for folks to find solace in tying a paper-clip into a knot or seeing how many binder clips they can attach to their fingers.”

Kipgen expects productivity to return to normal levels tomorrow when both hands will be needed to stuff and seal two thousand envelopes for a company mailing.