Welcome, shareholders, employees, and members of the board. As you know, it has always been the goal of this company not only to turn a profit, but to meet the needs of a changing America. My grandfather built this company on nothing but a dream, elbow grease, seed capital from numerous wealthy investor friends, a $500,000 revolving line of credit from the bank, a second dream telling him to give it all up and become a jazz musician which he wisely ignored, and an extremely lucrative contract with the U.S. Army to make its uniforms for our boys fighting overseas during World War II. He then passed this company along to my father, who hated jazz, so that was never an issue, and who took this company to the skies, making the space-age garments that kept our astronaut heroes safe on their way to the moon and back.

But let’s be honest: the world is changing, and this company must change with it. As the needs of our country evolve, so too must we. And if it’s not clear to you already, then it will be soon: the future of this company is in fancy jeans.

You’re probably thinking to yourselves, “Does the world really need another supplier of fancy jeans?” The answer, of course, is that we don’t plan to be just another supplier of fancy jeans. We intend to supply the fanciest jeans. Sure, we could follow existing trends—beads, studs, rhinestones, maybe a little silver thread here, a little gold braiding there, maybe an X that looks the way X’s usually look on treasure maps, maybe something resembling the New Orleans Saints logo—but our research tells us that the average American consumer is ready—nay, yearning—for the next level in fancy jeans.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to announce that our team is in the early phases of creating jeans bearing the following back pocket designs:

  • The unabridged iTunes disclaimer
  • The part of the Denny’s menu that includes The Grand Slamwich®
  • A picture of Glenn Frey on each of the back pockets, and “The Heat Is On” stitched across the crotch
  • A Magic Eye image (dolphin!)
  • The American flag, only instead of stars there are 50 tiny cans of Mountain Dew
  • A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  • Calvin peeing on the Chevrolet logo, and the Chevrolet logo peeing back at him
  • Scott Bakula’s IMDB page
  • A picture of a person wearing jeans, and on his jeans is a smaller picture of a person wearing jeans, and so on, and so on, into infinity

There’s no clearer way to say it: I’m not putting the future of this company and its employees at risk so that we can waste our time selling the second fanciest jeans in the business.

Of course, that’s not to say there’s no line whatsoever on content. I am not some sort of crazy person who is blind to the world outside of the world in which everyone’s primary concern is fancy jeans. Designs that would not be overboard in the abstract, but that this company would find objectionable for other reasons, include:

  • Any design featuring the word “khakis”
  • Any design featuring members of the Eagles who are not Glenn Frey
  • Swastikas

As the Nazis learned in the end, sometimes just being fancy isn’t enough. That’s a lesson that my grandfather taught me, and that still guides this company today.

Now, I’ll admit that I am not an expert in elaborately stitched denimwear. I haven’t spent years studying the intricacies of back pocket embroidery. I’m no Mr. Fancy Pants walking around the mall in his fancy new jeans, drinking a Jamba Juice, wearing his coat off his shoulders, being fancy in his new fancy jeans. I didn’t graduate from Fancy University with a major in Pants Studies. It’s not like I then went on to get a master’s in Advanced Pants Studies at some graduate program, because, like, what else was I going to do with a degree in Pants Studies except keep studying pants because, surprise, surprise, Pants Studies isn’t exactly engineering when it comes to learning anything that has real-world applications.

But I do know sales. And I know this great country, and I know that while America’s appetite for defense spending and space exploration may wax and wane, its desire for ever fancier jeans never will.