We are in a meeting! It is very long, and we are talking about a new automobile. The clients are talking very much, and we are making excited faces when we talk about the scripts we have written that we will turn into commercials. In truth, we all find it very dull; I for one have had the same conversation (with slight variations) one million times in the last fourteen years.
It starts to rain again. We cannot hear each other, for wet leaves are slapping against the window and people are shouting in the halls. The creative director pretends to be blind, and makes his elbow slip off the table. He writes me a note.
IT IS GOING
TO BE
A VERY
LONG
DAY.
Time passes. I grow older by another half day, and do not eat 12 miniature lemon tarts. Instead, I drink 3 bottles of fizzy water. More time passes; the water moves through my digestive tract; every time someone stops talking, my stomach roars like a tiny lion trapped inside a metal box, and then amplified one hundred times. It is funny, for a bit.
I pay attention again for a matter of seconds and hear the client asking when we will shoot the commercial. "Well, no later than October", we say. Then I ask a question.
Me: You'll have some cars available for us to shoot by then, won't you?
Client: Oh.
Time passes. A distant gunshot is heard; a dog barks damply in the garden. The tiny lion growls. I surpress a gigantic burp, which spurts instead out of my nose, making my eyes water.
Me: Oh?
Client: Maybe not.
Me: Oh!
Client: Perhaps we should see if we can ...
Me: ... I would. Yes.
Client: Yes. Probably a good idea.
Me: Yes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
6 comments:
You've shattered all my dreams - for years I've thought all the competent people must have gone into The Emerald City of - I mean, the "Private Sector"...
Hilarious! Especially the pause while you surpressed the giant burp.
How awful! But hilarious also.
Could you just remind us again in what sense you are actually non-working?
Pants: 'non-working' is a state of mind, as you well know. My current employment is, however, so extraordinarily vexing every single day that it is not possible to remain in an essential state of non-workingness. I am therefore considering becoming literally non-working again, and mortgage be damned. I'm going out of my fucking mind. It is neither fun nor satisfying, although the people are nice.
Ms Baroque: I used to work with very, very competent people. I didn't always like them, but they were very good, and I respected them. So they do exist, of that I am sure.
Post a Comment