You want to know the future in two words? Ladies' 'things'. Keen Sound, a Hong Kong company, wrote to Wu Hill & Associates, trying to persuade it to enter a new market: Ladies Sanitary Napkin Whole Plant Machines.
'Users of the machine can easily recover their investment within one or two years,' writes Grace Choi. 'The product from the machine is a necessity for women.' You feed pulp into one end of the machine, and it is crushed, formed, pressed, embossed, cut, melted, sealed and collected at the other end.
Sanitary pads cost nine cents per unit, and can be sold at 50 cents per piece. Output a year is 200 pieces a minute, times 60 minutes an hour times 12 hours a day, times 20 days a month times 12 months a year, which is 34.56 million pieces, she writes.
Staff at Wu Hill calculated the gross profit at $14 million. But there was one thing they couldn't work out. Why did Keen Sound choose them as buyers? Noelene Hill, of Wu Hill, wrote back: 'I cannot thank you enough for sending us your fax. It seems we will become multi-millionaires well within one year. We are a company of 10 male land surveyors and one female secretary (myself, who cannot use your product because of a hysterectomy) and have decided to close our company and buy your machine.' She added: 'What exactly is the pulp that you feed it? I feel that women would not relish the feel of wood chips on their most tender parts.' One hopes Keen Sound realises the surveyors are being sarcastic. The firm may be wise to target potential buyers a little more carefully in future.
'At least the market for this product won't 'dry up',' quipped Noelene. There is a new pawn shop on Canal St West, near Times Square in Causeway Bay, called Hang On Pawn Shop, I hear from Mark Majner, of Mid-Levels. It's one of those shops where you have to ring a bell to get in, so he imagined the scene when a customer arrives.
Ding dong.