The Secret Life of Waffleboy
Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag. It's been a long time, and there's been a lot of history with the waffle industry. My former web page, Duffman's House of Pain and Waffles was started back in Summer 2002, and ever since, my ties to the world of the waffle industry have been growing. But the truth of the matter is that, despite the various elements of waffle propaganda filling the page, I've eaten at most two waffles in the past two and a half years. Like any secret of this magnitude, it eventually came to light through some news of me and my actual standard breakfast food of choice, the bagel.
It is with a heavy heart that I have to admit that the allegations are true, except for those that state that I lure small children eating waffles back to my house to slaughter them and add them to my Soylent Bagel recipe. Perhaps an explanation of the deception that did take place, however, is in order. The original intent of the page was never to have anything to do with waffles, but rather just to have a catchy name, which Duffman's House of Pain and Waffles seemed to accomplish. As the months drifted by, the page was more in need of a theme, and using the supposed lust for waffles seemed to be a suitable choice, even if not really true.
"How would you like to be rich and famous?" The nine simple words changed my life. I'd been happy before to stick to the simple world of Web design, but I had no idea what others had in store for me. The big names in waffles -- Eggo, Aunt Jemima, Bubba Gump Shrimp (yes, they make waffles now) -- they were all coming together because they were losing market share in the breakfast world to the Pop tarts and breakfast burritos. They were especially weak in certain younger demographics, and they needed someone to head up their new marketing campaign. They needed someone young and clean-cut, and yet with an everyman quality that can play in the sticks, especially to minority demographics. They wanted someone who wouldn't be forgotten by a public with an increasingly short attention span, someone trendy and edgy. I don't know why they came to me, but they did, and the rest of the ride was fast and rocky.
Before I knew it, my face was on a billboard in Times Square. Yes, it was all a lie, but what a beautiful lie it was... I was beginning to believe it myself. The new ad campaign was an unprecedented success, too. "You've got people eating waffles again," they told me. "You've got people believing in waffles again." They said I was going to be bigger than Joe Isuzu, and I didn't know what they were talking about. But my phone was rinigng off the hook, the checks kept pouring in, and I just didn't care anymore. A few advertising lines later, though, and I looked back at what was going on and wanted it to stop. After all, I didn't have anything against waffles, but it felt more than a little strange to be touted as their greatest defender.
But it was just too late. The ball had already gotten rolling, and there was no way to drop out of the public eye now. The waffle industry even brought in some studies and statistics for me to see. Without my work turning kids to waffles, they said, the kids would start doing drugs instead. It seemed wacky, of course, but you can't argue with the numbers, and the numbers said I was keeping kids off drugs. And it seemed like all this good was worth this little white lie. Some people ask me about this decision sometimes. And lying to the public is a big deal, but they told me to think about the children. And you know what?... I'd do it again.
In the meantime, though, the whole thing was just skyrocketing out of control. My face and waffles were everywhere. And it wasn't just the ads keeping me in the public eye anymore. I'd made the move to celebrity, and before I knew it, I was picking out designer wear for premieres, wearing ribbons for AIDS, and married to J-Lo for a short period. And how do you tell the public that the whole thing that had made you and was keeping you a star was all a facade then?
Recently, I've come to look at all the exposure of my bagel pursuits as a godsend. I'd never have been able to admit the whole thing to the public if I hadn't been forced -- if I hadn't been caught. What do you want to know, though? Am I sorry for what I did? Absolutely. But as Alexander Pope once wrote, "To err is human; to forgive, divine." I suppose I'll just hope that the American public is full of Popes...