If Mitt Romney is Elected I Will Have to Lay Some of You Off

Dear Valued Employees of Astra Meditation and Natural Food,

As most of you know our collective life-energy exploration, Astra, is doing really super good right now. We have been selling more molasses pills than ever before and we can hardly keep the fruit leather in stock. Profits are up on broccoli seeds, we have a whole new line of gluten free cereal and Verbena's poultices are attracting new customers every day. But all is not well. Your jobs may be in danger.

Yes, we're becoming more self-sustaining every day. The beeswax and lemon has helped with the smell in the composting toilet. Wayne Spotted Bear has put some new solar panels up on the dehydrating shed and thanks to those and the windmill we are generating almost a tenth of the electricity needed to run our cash register. Like Guru Paul always says: think outside the grid.

It has been a really groovy ride with all of you. Tragically, it may be coming to an end. Your jobs and my business are being threatened by the political situation here in what the Chickahominy tribe call "the land of rivers." America is a land I love, a land where an upper-middle class white kid from Long Island can reinvent himself as a Native American Cosmic Spiritualist and beat the odds to start his own business. But if you vote for Mitt Romney and he gets elected, well, I may just have to cut back on my employees.

Some people think business is all about having a good idea and starting out with a little seed money and pulling yourself up. Actually, business is where you take your hobbies and the government helps you with loans to turn those hobbies into a semi-profitable venture that you spend on a baby poop green Chevelle that you drive to the very first Burning Man and just have your reality opened way up.

I began this business in 1982 after returning from Burning Man (before it was official and commercialized) with a bunch of Mexican herbal pills and an idea. I drove around the East Coast, mostly Vermont, and sold amulets and teas I picked from public land. Then I drove my car into a river in a cry for help that further enlightened me.

After I was released from the hospital I managed to earn a federal student loan that helped me get my degree in transcendental massage. That, in turn, helped me get my small business loan to open up my massage and raw food restaurant that ironically burned down two years later. That was because of a hate crime unrelated to me.

The insurance paid out and I was able to build Astra in 1989. Ever since then this business has been expanding from the front room down into our basement with the refrigerator. We've gone from having one kind of silver biotic to having three kinds.

But I am so afraid it won't last. Mitt Romney is threatening to take away the liberal arts education funding and energy grants that make Astra possible. Worse, he wants to repeal Obamacare and its provisions which classify astral projection and herb pills as medical treatment and forces insurance companies to pay for it. If Mitt Romney is elected I will have to lay some of you off.

I try to keep negativity out of my thoughtspace, but I have been forced to consider what a future under Mitt Romney might look like. Can you picture a world where meditating is outlawed and the only dried apricots available are the kind treated with sulfur and we don't receive a $17 dollar green energy credit on our electric bill? It is a nightmare beyond reason. That is why I am asking you to help me keep this business open and vote for Barack Obama.

If we can reelect him we might be able to continue growing, adding organic juices, introducing the world to our uniquely Astra mix of hot yoga and ice cold raw milk. Let's do this. Together we can make it happen. Anything is possible. Even time travel to have erotic dialogue with yourself.

May all blessing be upon you and your deity of choosing. Together we can do this. We can elect Barack Obama and keep everything the same.

Signed, your boss,

Andromeda Cornflower