I Hate Everyone, Except You(55)
For example, I received this message on Facebook from a woman named Irene with two friends and a cat avatar:
Your always talking about drinking on the chew. I hope you get fired because your a alkahalic and a idiot.
To which I replied:
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your lovely note. Please allow me to address your two main points forthwith.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests that men not exceed four drinks per day or a total of fourteen per week. Most weeks I consume less than half that amount. Nevertheless, I appreciate your implied concern.
If your hopes and dreams include me being fired from my job, I encourage you to share them with the executives at ABC/Disney. For best results, you may want to include in your correspondence reasons for my termination other than your belief that I am “a idiot.”
Because you have been so kind as to share your opinion of me directly with me, cutting out any middleman, I hope you will allow me to return the favor. Granted, I know less about you than you may about me, but what little I do know is rather telling. Mostly, I am aware that the public education system in your state has failed you miserably, and for that I am sorry, not just for you, but for our country as a whole. Because you seem to have been denied English class after the fifth grade, I am happy to provide you with some of the highlights:
Your is a possessive pronoun. That is, it indicates that someone or something belongs to you. For example, one might refer to your cat figurine collection, your bedsores, or your belief that Tom Selleck can hear your heart’s lustful cries for him.
You’re is a contraction of the words you and are. For example, instead of writing You are apparently unaware of any software that might correct blatant spelling errors. To adopt a more conversational tone, I can write, You’re apparently unaware . . . You get the idea, I hope.
Proper nouns, such as the titles of TV shows, are always capitalized. Words beginning with a vowel receive the article an. And there is no k in the words alcohol or alcoholic. There is, however, a k in Alka-Seltzer. Speaking of which, I need some. Wow, do I have the mother of hangovers today! Remind me never to mix tequila, bath salts, and Venezuelan hookers ever again.
Until our electronic paths cross again, I wish you peace.
Sincerely,
Clinton
SALAD DAYS
For a couple of years, I was a spokesman for a brand of prepackaged salads—combinations of the more popular lettuces, sometimes including a smattering of shredded carrots, all conveniently washed and cellophane-wrapped for the health-conscious man or woman on the go! The gig paid pretty well, and I liked the work: developing salad recipes, posing for a few photos while holding salad, and being interviewed by journalists about, yes, salad. Easy, if typical, spokesman stuff. To mix things up a bit, I tried to convince the salad marketing team to think outside the plastic bag and sponsor a contest I could host called the Great American Toss Off, during which hundreds, maybe thousands, of really gorgeous people could slather themselves in ranch dressing and frolic in a giant swimming pool filled with arugula. I would watch that all damn day, I said, but they didn’t bite.
Instead, the company held a more straightforward contest: Tell us why YOU love salad and you could win a trip for two to Napa Valley! While there, the winners would go wine tasting, take a cooking course at the Culinary Institute of America, and receive a styling lesson from me.
About a week before I was supposed to fly out to California, I called my endorsements agent at the time, Jason, to confirm some of the details of the trip, specifically the expectations surrounding this “styling lesson.” I had assumed it was the “How to Dress Your Body Type” speech I had given dozens of times across the country.
“Not quite,” Jason said. “They want you to talk about styling your salad.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I answered.
“You know, how to make your salad look pretty.”
It took me slightly longer than usual to process the words that had just come out of his mouth. “That’s ridiculous. How long am I supposed to talk about this?”
“You’re contracted for two hours.”
There are things I can drone on about ad nauseam, but decorating lettuce is not one of them. “Two hours? You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “You make salad look pretty by putting it on a nice plate and sprinkling some . . . I don’t know . . . chopped pecans on top. Now, how long did it take me to say that? Three seconds, max? What am I going to do for the other one hour, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-seven seconds?”
Eventually Jason calmed me down, by basically lying through his teeth. “They’ll be so glad you’re there,” he said. “You can talk about whatever you want, salad, clothes, decorating. Just talk and smile. Get your picture taken. Then cash the check.”
I’ll be honest; that part about the check made me feel a lot better about the whole situation.
When I arrived at the culinary institute on the Sunday morning of the grand-prize weekend, the contest winners and their guests were watching a chef cook a pork loin. So I took the opportunity to ask the organizer to clarify my role. After the demo, she said, the winners were going to create their own salads, using the prepackaged blends (of course), and I would help them with their plating, because each salad would be professionally photographed.
“Do you have a nice selection of plates?” I asked. I had told my agent the marketing team should supply me with as many options as possible. Plates, theoretically, could go a long way in salad styling. “Maybe some pretty colors? I could show them how to mix and match patterns. Or create an interesting table with a combination of antique and modern pieces.”