FT. LAUDERDALE, FL - Hundreds of men dressed in outlandish suits descended on Ft. Lauderdale Sunday morning, all carrying briefcases full of paperwork and exotic wares. Witnesses report the men approaching pedestrians and attempting to strike deals, laughing “as if they knew something you didn’t.”
“He just comes right up to me with this big ol’ smile,” said Ft. Lauderdale resident Mrs. Anne-Marie Witherspoon, 63, “and says, ‘good morning, ma’am, can I interest you in some fine silverware?’ And then he just started giggling like a schoolgirl, I tell you!”
“I bought the loveliest set of forks off him,” she added, brandishing a gleaming fork that was already dripping with her own blood.
Residents overall seem pleased by the incursion. “They may have seemed a little odd at first, but their prices are some of the lowest in town,” said enthused resident Dennis Benson, 46, who was found dead of massive multiple trauma several months ago, his skull cleanly bisected by what could only be enormous razor-sharp talons. “And they’ve got the wackiest little doodads,” Benson continued, fingering a small bronze sphere that quietly clicked with no apparent rhythm. “You know, I bet this would make a great birthday present for little Evelyn next month.”
Not everyone is pleased by the sudden appearance of the salesmen, however. Local pawn shop owner Candace Mitchell, 36, cited “anti-competitive pricing” as her main grievance. “Now I of all people don’t want to tell people not to do their business,” Mitchell explained, “but don’t let’s put hard-working American citizens out of a job.” According to Mitchell, business has dropped nearly 60% since the appearance of the salesmen, and she’s starting to worry for her livelihood. “I tell you, if these men don’t move on soon, I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep up the car payments,” Mitchell stated.
Mitchell also questioned the quality of the products the men were selling, noting that many of hats they had sold had seemed “untrained” and “disobedient.” “I seen some of the things they’re foisting on people,” said Mitchell. “I bet if you opened their pocketwatches they’d be full of knock-off Chinese tendons.”
The hospitality industry in Ft. Lauderdale reports they have not significantly benefitted from the arrival of so many salesmen. “Normally when you get this many visitors in town, you see a good bump in revenue,” explains Ramón Flores, 44, general manager of the Hampton Inn in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, “but these folks seemingly neither sleep nor eat. Come nightfall, they just gather at the waterfront and stand there, starin’ at the moon, just yukkin’ it up. I don’t know what they think’s so funny.”
Added Flores, “I can hear them laughing in my dreams now.”
Approached for comment, a salesman began laughing like a hyena, and offered the reporter a “great deal” on a small framed picture of Abraham Lincoln that oozed blood in the presence of immigrants. The reporter politely declined.
Merithew Mandrake is Approved News 6’s business correspondent. Rescued as a child from the Great Minnesota Steamworks during an annual federal raid, Mandrake has since dedicated their life to studying even the darkest arts of business and commerce, and has amassed a significant fortune through means that can only be described as “unsavory.” Mandrake has twice been a recipient of the J. Clenchmold Wrathmore Award for Excellence in Wealth. They live in an enormous mansion in southern Texas with their many servants and their devoted husband Francis.