The Case of the Missing Missing Laptop

 It has been a few days since I finally managed to set up a Detective Agency Club within the school and though I am yet to create promotional posters, I'm sure the days of sleuth success are on the horizon. With such hopeful sunny thoughts floating happily within my cranium, I trudged in from the contrastingly wet weather outside. Swinging, thrusting, throwing and catching my still dripping umbrella, the very picture of a slightly damp ninja in training, I pondered on the elegant power of the umbrella (A shield to protect one from the rain as well as a potential weapon with which to enter combat, therefore a near invincible multipurpose object capable of both defense and offense) and what it would be like to properly hit someone with it, dexterously wielding the umbrella as a substitute long sword.

 As I was fantasizing about gladiatorial matches to the death fought entirely with umbrellas, Underling Butler (a bitter, snide and posh creature with a constant under tone of mild malice, topped off with more than a touch of private school arrogance. Capable of verbose rants and ravings, quite rich with a very well stocked and local house a minutes walk from the school gates, an optimum location to raid for supplies) trotted my way.

 "Hey," he shouted clearly in a voice that I felt should be deported back to Downton Abbey, "I have an actual detective case for you!" The last time anyone had said anything like this to me, it had been Hunter Swift, reporting to me one illegal placement of an apple core within her locker, hence I inquired what the matter was without much enthusiasm.

 A rather surprising reply came my way, "My laptop," declared Underling Butler, "It's been stolen" I paused for a moment, wondering whether I had fantasized those words. An actual proper valuable theft! To an underling of mine no less! What better opportunity to show my not inconsiderable skills as a detective!
 After several minutes celebrating the fact Underling Butler's laptop had been stolen. I immediately took up my role as investigation leader, announcing we should start a series of inquiries and take witness statements. Underling Butler, however, suggested we consider our plan thoroughly first.

 Since we were, as of yet, short of a detective office and therefore a place in which we might thoroughly discuss a plan. It was decided on going to Underling Butler's house, a minutes walk away. We made our way down the short stretch of road by a slightly unkempt common, turned quagmire by the downpour. Underling Butler at a brisk walking pace, while I skipped cheerfully along. A few seconds down the scenic, some would say picturesque or quaint, route then a swift turn left and we were before Underling Butler's house.

 We rang on the doorbell, the sound of which echoed within the expensive structure of his domain, to shortly be let in by a maid. "Right, well," began Underling Butler walking towards the kitchen, a holy inner sanctuary of foodstuffs and oasis of various edible treats, "I..." here he paused. A silence filled the corridor, a silence only punctuated by the miserable, slightly pathetic shuffling of his recently castrated dog Nero, a name which somehow seemed a little too ballsy for the whining canine.

 I coughed then asked why the pointlessly long pause, after I had judged the pause to be sufficiently long enough to be classified as pointlessly long. Underling Butler continued to stare at the table ahead of him and the object atop it for a few more seconds, then slowly turning around, he announced in a slightly sing song voice, "I appear to have left my laptop at home... sorry"

 On the positive side, I now know what it feels like to properly hit someone with an umbrella.

Popular

 I've recently noticed that the current trend in advertisement seems to be competition. The most prominent example is that of chocolates. Chocolate companies now emphatically announce several separate flavors of the same brand ranging from caramel to orange to nuts to human despair to broken dreams and then insist people vote and compete against each other in order to prove the superiority of their taste buds over other like minded chocolate connoisseurs. Though essentially even if you were to vote for your favorite flavor of a chocolate and successfully confirmed that you in fact have the same preference of chocolate flavoring as a vast proportion of other chocolate consumers/future diabetics, you still are in actuality a loser since all you've done is basically had a race within a hamster wheel or in this case the cooperate publicity wheel. So everyone, except the chocolate company, loses (Or if you're of an extremely positive mindset, everyone wins since there really is not a jot of difference between the victorious and the defeated in their gullibility, cooperate usability and potential for obesity).
 This competition of flavors within individual chocolate brands is its self a part of competition between separate chocolate brands, each trying to get more publicity and sell more products than the other, a competition within a competition. Even this competition is then swallowed by the larger competition between chocolate and other luxury foods typically consumed by children and lonely adults such as ice cream or cake, thereby creating a competition within a competition within a competition.
 If this trend of creating a marketing battle within another marketing battle continues, much like in a medieval ten bird roast, the subject of each battle would naturally become smaller and smaller. Perhaps in the future there will be voting polls to decide which of the many unhealthy ingredients used to create a certain chocolate flavor within a certain chocolate brand is the nation's favorite. Eventually there maybe surveys to discover which particular electron attached to which certain atom within a chosen molecule composing what preferred chemical contained in an individual ingredient used to create a select flavor within a certain chocolate brand within the large category of various sugary foodstuffs labeled as chocolates within the category of non-essential delicacies labeled as sweets, is the people's choice.
 Though I find this culture of competition irritating I have to admit that it seems effective so perhaps I should use it myself. I have recently noticed that other people may have more friends than I do, in short I need to become more socially popular. Hence, adopting the policy of competition I shall now develop schizophrenia/multiple personality disorder and those people around me could decide which of my changeable personalities they like best.
  However, as people see the social success inducing effects of a serious mental disorder, multiple personality disorder will catch on as a trend. Then very soon everyone will be going around with several different minds hidden within them, each of whom may have a different preference in the electron of an atom of a molecule of a chemical of an ingredient of a flavor of a chocolate of a brand. There would then have to be a democratic vote to decide which personality is most fit to vote before any one individual could even vote for their favorite electron. Inevitably the world will become a dark and dull place of near infinite voting where one must vote for one thing to vote for another thing to be able to vote for a further more important thing, resulting in infinite reams of paper work and long winded government election processes causing indecision, fracture and general anarchy.
 In conclusion, these chocolate flavor votes will more than likely result in the apocalypse. Hence we must start a campaign against voting. Now there are several campaign methods I have in mind but seeing as I'm indecisive about which to choose we can decide through a democratic survey of popularity.