In my first-ever published humor piece, featured in The Higgs Weldon, I imagine what it would look like for Amazon to take over private education.
Oddly enough, this piece came to me in a dream. That's not a joke - several months ago, I woke from an odd dream in which I was touring a new school, built by Amazon. I had no idea where this subconscious revelation might have come from, other than the fact that I work in a school every day and it's possible I had recently ordered something through Prime.
I woke up thinking it would make an interesting story, and I had to write about it somehow. With Amazon's expansion into brick-and-mortar bookstores and grocery stores, I thought the idea had just enough plausibility to it to make it interesting.
Rather than a full-fledged story, though, where I worried the joke might run thin, I wrote up a conceptual humor piece based on an earlier Amazon press release. I had a lot of fun thinking about what it would actually look like for Amazon to own a school, from "One hour a day of forced recreation in an enclosed space, closely monitored by shipping drones," to the fact that "All students with a five-star rating will also receive an Amazon Fire TV stick and one Amazon Dash button for Cheez-Its, Pop-Tarts, Doritos, or Gatorade – perfect for those college freshman cravings."
You can read the entire thing here. I'm thankful to The Higgs Weldon for publishing this piece. I hope you enjoy it!