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Aperture LaboratoriesEnrichment CenterWe Do What We Must Because We Can
Established 1943Upper Michigan, U.S.A.
Internal extension only
Form No.ASI-82-Ω-01
DepartmentOffice of the Chief Executive
Issued1982
ClassificationUnrestricted
RevisionOn tape. Read aloud in the lobby on the hour.
Office of the Chief Executive

The Lemon Memorandum

Three weeks earlier, on tape, the Chief Executive said that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. He has listened to the tape. He has been thinking. This is the sheet on which he says what he has been thinking, and it is read aloud in the lobby on the hour, because he asked.

Dictated by Cave Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, from bed, at volume. Transcribed by C. The engineers have been sent a copy and have replied, and the reply is appended.

All right, I’ve been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! “I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?”

Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

The Earlier Position

Three weeks ago, on tape fourteen, I said make lemonade. I have listened to it. I was wrong. [cough] I have never said that on tape before and I am saying it now so that the engineers understand the size of what follows. A man who has been given the moon and told it is poison has been given lemons. A man who lies in a bed and says stay positive into a microphone is making lemonade. I made lemonade for three weeks. I have stopped. Tape fourteen is not to be played in the lobby. Tape fifteen is.

On Life’s Manager

I want to see the manager. I have asked Caroline to find out who that is and she has come back and told me there is not one, and I have told her that there is always one, that there has never been a building I walked into that did not have a man in the back who could say yes, and that she is to keep looking.

There is no manager. I have asked. I have asked everybody. — C.

Fine. Then the manager is me. I am the man in the back. I have been the man in the back since the garage, and if life wants to hand lemons to the man in the back, life can come down the elevator and do it in person, and I will be waiting, and I will have the engineers with me, and the engineers will have the lemons.

On The Sheet In The Vault

There is a sheet on file from 1959, in a drawer that most of you do not have the clearance to open, that describes a programme concerning combustible fruit and says the programme does not begin for another twenty years. It has been twenty-three. The sheet was optimistic. I was optimistic. The programme begins today, and it begins on tape, and it begins with the word combustible, which I want the engineers to look at for a long time before they look at the word lemon.

In 1959 the fourth thing on the list of what the President was presently interested in was combustible fruit. It had not been authorised, discussed, or written down anywhere. It is now all three. [cough]
“I’m the man who’s going to burn your house down! With the lemons!”
— Cave Johnson, 1982, tape fifteen, played in the lobby on the hour

Instruction To The Engineers

Interoffice Memorandum

ToEngineering; Materials; Applied Sciences, if any of them are leftFromCave Johnson, Chief Executive OfficerDate1982ReCombustible LemonccCaroline; the lobby

You are to invent a combustible lemon. It is to be a lemon. It is to be combustible. It is to burn a house down, and I do not mean a model of a house and I do not mean a shed, I mean a house, with a manager in it. [cough] You have the seventy million. You have the vat. You have the wall with the number on it, and I want you to look at the number every morning and think about what a man does with seven dollars when he has been told he cannot have it.

Progress is to be reported to me on tape. I will listen to it in the order it arrives. If it arrives in the order lemon, combustible, I will know you have not understood the memorandum, and I will send it back down, and I will send it down on fire.

Specification, As Dictated

Designation
Combustible lemon. Singular. He is particular about the singular.
Form
A lemon
Yield
One house. With the manager in it.
Delivery
Thrown. By the Chief Executive, if he is able, and he has said he will be able.
Target
Life’s house. Address unknown. Caroline is looking.
Colour
Lemon. Materials has asked whether it could be orange, since they have the orange. It cannot be orange.
Predecessor
1959 sheet, twenty years, optimistic
Priority
Above the computer

Figures

The lemon
The lemon
Combustible
Combustible
Life’s house
Life’s house
Life’s manager
Life’s manager
The fourth figure has been drawn at the Chief Executive’s request so that the engineers know what they are looking for. Nobody has found him. The figure is retained.
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE     TAPE 15   SIDE A
  00:00  ALL RIGHT, I'VE BEEN THINKING.
  00:06  DON'T MAKE LEMONADE.
  00:19  GET MAD!
  00:40  DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER!
  00:58  DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?
  01:12  WITH THE LEMONS!
  01:20  A COMBUSTIBLE LEMON THAT BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!
  01:31  [COUGHING. NINETY SECONDS.]
  03:02  CAROLINE. FIND THE MANAGER.
PLAYBACK: LOBBY, ON THE HOUR. TAPE 14 WITHDRAWN.
Verifying personnel file…

Cave JohnsonChief Executive OfficerDictated 1982, at volume, from bed. Tape fifteen. Retained. Played.

Form ASI-82-Ω-01. The company does not make lemonade. The company has not made lemonade since tape fourteen, which is withdrawn, and which personnel are asked to forget, and which personnel have heard a hundred times a day and cannot.
twenty years the sheet said. it was twenty three. he counted. he counts everything at both ends