"Editor's Note"

As most things begin arbitrarily (except the new French Republic, which was methodically planned to begin on Bastille Day, and what a day it was!) I decided not to labor in fruitless circuitousness over the subject of the first post. I just decided to do the first thing that came to mind, almost to get it out of the way.

So, here it is: I wrote the original draft of this at work, copy for a Wal-Mart in-store television ad. I added the additional segments perhaps in frustration for, well, being assigned to write an extremely benign, bland, huckster script.



Jerry-
With a (very) fine-toothed comb, I was able to lift some excellent copy from your work on the Wal-Mart pre-paid cell phone spot. Keep up the great work! But, in the future, please respect our client’s requests for a relatively benign tone in their advertisements.

Please see my suggestions for omission in RED.


The Nu-Phone (:30 spot)

A happy, animated pre-paid cell phone, Chip, bounces around an open space in front of a multi-colored backdrop. “Key points” of focus pop up on the screen as he introduces them.

Everybody loves a surprise, except when the surprise is an unexpected phone bill. Worse yet, when the surprise is the ex-husband you threw out of the own house weeks ago, with nothing more than the clothes on his back, furtively eying you from the linen closet as you go through the motions of your banal daily chores. I mean, yeah, pesky bills notifying you that you have gone three and a half hours over your nights-and-weekends minutes can elicit some groans or mild profanity, but nothing like the soul-retching screams for mercy elicited as you in full consciousness watch your kidneys being clumsily pried from a crude slit in your lower abdomen and individually wrapped in the two matching lavender-with-a-mauve-trim hand towels, which you both bought with the intention of hanging in the guest bathroom so overnight visitors could distinguish the fresh atypical hand towels as the ones you supplied for them to use for the duration of their stay, right before your terror-saturated corneas. (I know you changed the locks Helen!)

Pre-paid cell phones offer all the convenience of fast, instantaneous connection wherever, whenever, much like the shameless unsolicited sexual magnetism my wife exhibited when she had so much as a half-glass of sherry in her. Honest to God, it didn’t matter if we were entertaining close friends on a quiet Friday evening or at a company family picnic on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve heard that woman offer to do things I haven’t even been able to find on the internet to total strangers. True story: She once fellated a shift of Sbaro employees at a New York Thruway rest stop and when I accused her of the infidelity, she called me a bad father and insisted I wait in the car while she used my credit card to treat the blowees to Carvel. But, they leave the hassle of binding contracts and unexpected bills in the dust! Much like the “binding contract” we swore to uphold the rueful day I officially made her my whore of a wife.

Plus, unlike rigid monthly plans, airtime cards put you in control. Pay only for the minutes you want to use! Ah, control! A curious, precarious beast. How you tyrannically manipulated the counterbalance with our three kids, on the fulcrum of societies preconceptions of maternal supremacy in the formative years of a child.

And because you add minutes as you need them, you don’t need a high credit score to go pre-paid. In fact, you don’t even need a credit card at all. The latter something my accountant told me as I sobbed over the fact that it would take me seven-years to repair my credit after Helen spent impossible sums on platinum dog chains and mink knee socks. But by all means, open a joint account in your own honeymoon years and you too can someday relish in the serene transcendence of paying for a discounted floor-model blender with rolls of dimes.

You don’t pay for gas that goes unused, so why pay for minutes that go to waste? After all, time is something you’ll never get back! To get exactly what you pay for, visit the Connection Center for a whole range of pre-paid cell phones here at Wal-Mart. She won’t let me see our children. How could this have happened? Aren’t I in the right here? Am I crazy?!?

Chip starts weeping and cursing incomprehensible to the heavens until falling to his knees and really letting go.

Chryon: Brought to you by the Nu-Phone, here at Wal-Mart.