*SPLAT*RRU Corporate History

Welcome to the RRU Corporate History archives, sponsored by the all volunteer RRU Historical Society, [de]composed exclusively of Dead Netters.

Contents

  1. A Brief History of Roadkill
  2. RRU : The Messyzoic Era
  3. How We Came To Be Where We Are Today

A Brief History of Roadkill

As long as homo sapiens has been using conveyances, or even rolling and pushing things around, there has been roadkill. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Cain, doing somersaults down a hill, created the first roadkill - a pigeon whose wings he had clipped ran in front of him, chasing a horde of dung beetles. All of them (except Cain) bought the farm, and Cain was set for dinner. An obscure Iraqi scholar suggests this was what caused him to become a vegetarian later in life.

With the advent of technology, higher efficiency spreads at a phenomenal rate. Soon people were creating almost a dozen roadkill a year per person. By the time of the Roman Empire, roadkill had reached epidemic proportions.

According to Rowan & Martin [1], roadkill played a major part in exacerbating the spread of the Black Death in Europe several times. Roadkill is likely responsible for other major disasters, from the Irish Potato Famine, to the Peoples' Revolution in China, to the fire in the Apollo Command Module, to the failure of the Hubble Space Telescope, to the bizarre behavior of the Secret Service in dealing with Steve Jackson Games, to the BATF's Debacle in Waco.

[1] Encyclopaedia Absurdica, 1966, Vol XVII, p 47,193


RRU : The Messyzoic Era

RRU did not evolve. RRU was not exactly created, either. It just sort of spontaneously combusted on The Net [2] one day in 1988, wreaking havoc on the minds of those without a Klu (tm) and people who cringe when someone jokes about Bambi getting a booboo. The original payment list (MIA since shortly after it sprang from nowhere onto the net) spread through news groups and froups with abandon, boggling its keeper's mind. Even the flames couldn't unboggle it.

So, Miles, the Keeper of the Payments (aka Price List), found himself with a company existing only in cyberspace. Soon the name Roadkills-R-Us was popping up all over talk.bizarre, and other, better left unnamed, froups. A while later he posted the first classified ads in misc.jobs.offered. To his amazement, he was never flamed. Several notable netters joined the company in high ranks. The presidency being a hot target at the time, it was decided that once a year, all officers would convene in a tunnel of an inactive volcano on Maui, to compete via videogames for the not so coveted office. Loser became president for the next year. Miles' luck failed as usual, and he has only been absent when dead.

Various foodstuffs were developed from the corpus delecti, with varying success in the commercial marketplace, ranging from raging successes to riots in LA to massive lawsuits over mass deaths. A high point was reached when a Boeing 747 clipped Santa Claus Christmas Eve, 1990. Santa Pops sold like mad. Coca-Cola and Pepsi developed competing products to the rave Reindeer Sodas. The RRU tentacles now reached completely around the globe, past the moon, and to the depths of the sea. Nuclear subs began bringing back things from the deep so nasty only RRU's bravest would even touch them - with company-issued ten foot gaffes.

The Great Clone Wars and the Talk.Bizarre Wars devastated the ranks, but more always showed up. Miles created the killer app for laptops, and again went to m.j.o - this time he wasn't absurd enough, and received resumes from students with little grasp of the English [3] idiom or sense of the absurd.

[2] The precursor to The Web.

[3] Well, USAian, actually.


How We Came To Be Where We Are Today

In late June of 1991, RRU Corporate HQ moved from Georgia to Texas. Everything was coming up yellow roses, until early 1993, when Clinton's Bureau of Animalrights Terrorist/Fanatics assaulted the newest processing plant near Waco, TX. RRU leadership knew it was in trouble when James Watt publicly denounced the company as ``an unhealthy leech on the backs of this country's great plastic food industry''. When both sides come after you with big guns, it's time to get out.

Fleeing through long-prepared tunnels into the partially completed underground particle accelerator, the staff of RRU emerged outside the line of rabid reporters and personal injury lawyers ringing the invasion force, and split, taking most of the best roadkill stock with them, leaving behind surplus department store mannequins as decoys at the factory. Only moments later, the BATF final assault hit the grounds. 98 mannequins were completely obliterated, and 47 BATF agents were killed or wounded. It was an awesome sight. (217KB)

RRU rebuilt underground, on the land inside a major rural interchange where several interstate highways meet, assuring lots of fresh roadkill close at hand. Today, the corporate HQ and main plant have taken over 17 acres of federal land underneath the road system.

RRU currently employs the off-hour minds of literally a non-zero number of people.

Last updated: 13 July 2008


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Copyright 1995-2008 Roadkills-R-Us, Austin, TX. All rights preserved, jellied, or jammed. All giraffe images based on an image courtesy of Philip Greenspun. Gratefully used with permission. Roadkills-R-Us and RRU are trademarks of Miles O'Neal <meo@rru.com>. Web space provided by Net Ads.