When I was in high school, I was on the Speech & Debate team - I know, I can practically hear the snickers and the “that figures!” already. One of the categories, which I did not compete in, was called “Extemporaneous Speaking”, where they were given some random topic to consider and 5 or 10 minutes to prepare, and then had to get up and deliver a coherent speech on that subject. I remember hearing one guy being given the topic of “Pagodas” and thinking to myself, “How the hell do they do that?”
So, I am going to try my hand at “Extemporaneous Writing” and we’ll see what happens, although I will allow myself much more than 5 minutes.
So, I need your help. First five comments below (one per person, please!):
first comment: a color
second comment: a number
third comment: a profession
fourth comment: a year
fifth comment: the last word of the essay should be _______.
Please, have mercy on me! The idea here is to foster creativity and possibilities, not to mention some humor, not to torment the writer.
Looking forward to this. Thanks for playing!
Cody Pimental: Red!
Heidi Jinea Cappadona: Ten
Scott Barnett: Rabbi
Richard Feldman: 1979
J Buzz Webb: simultaneously.
"Black & White"
I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day yesterday when I pulled into the parking lot at Chromacorp® (a division of Omnico Industries), and some prick had scrawled “FAGOT” across the sign at the head of my space. I knew who it was. It was that asshole Austin Houston from accounting, or “acounting” as he would probably spell it. I never could figure out exactly what that guy’s problem is. He’s had it in for me ever since that pretty blond chick Bunni or Fluffi or whatever her name is from Marketing said in the lunchroom that my ‘59 Cadillac Eldorado is nicer than his stupid Hummer H3. I guess he was doomed from the start, with a name like that. I mean, who names their kid that way? And Charisse, who works in the cubicle next to me, told me that his family wasn’t even from Texas. They were from Vermont or Minnesota, some place that’s about as un-Texas as you can get.
Anyway, I shouldn’t have been too surprised, because it had already been the sort of day when you realize that you probably never should have gotten out of bed to begin with. First thing in the morning, I discover that my cat, Mrs. Danvers, has left what I hope is a hairball on the floor just outside the bedroom door. By “discover”, I mean to say that I stepped right on the alleged hairball with my bare foot, and as I did I looked up to see Mrs. Danvers regarding me from her spot on the nearby ottoman, flicking her tail and looking at me with an expression which seemed to say, “I pity you, pathetic human.” “And good morning to you, too, Mrs. Danvers” I mumble, making my way to the bathroom to wash off my foot and grab some moist towelettes. I should mention that I love moist towelettes. They smell nice and have a thousand and one uses.
Anyway, I clean up Mrs. Danvers’ mess, leaving behind, I might add, a light refreshing scent, and make my way, at last, to the kitchen for some coffee. There is one K-Cup left in the cupboard, thank God for that anyway. 90 seconds later I’m cradling that precious cup of warm caffeinated goodness in my hand, only to have my hopes dashed when the half-and-half I pour into it congeals into a nice layer of cottage cheese-like substance and my coffee now looks like the bottom of the East River. Now I am forced to start my day with a hot, steaming cup of Dandelion and Star Anise tea called “Seven Chakra Fusion” left here by my last boyfriend, Julian. Remind me never to date a macrobiotic yoga instructor again, even if he does look like John Stamos and can put his legs behind his head.
Anyway, so I finally make it out of the house and into my car, my beautiful 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, which I have named Mrs. Trumbull after little Ricky’s babysitter on “I Love Lucy”. She is an absolute beauty, a chrome-plated, tail-finned head-turner. I bought her on an online auction for $8,500, and then spent another $6,000 to have her restored and road-worthy. She’s painted in a fabulous shade of 1950s aqua called “Desilu” with a contrasting hard-top in a shade of white called “Steamed Milk”, and her interior stuns with upholstery in a dazzling grey called “Shawshank Sunshine” and the dashboard in black. But it’s not really black-black; it’s called “All Souls’ Eve”.
The ride to work, at least, was OK. It usually is. For 15 minutes, driving the back roads from my place to the office, I’m happy. Behind the wheel of Mrs. Trumbull, I am special, I am a celebrity like Eileen Davidson on the red carpet of the Daytime Emmys. She plays Kristen on “Days of Our Lives” and when she walks the red carpet, everyone waves and screams and wants her to stop so they can take her picture. Well, that is how I feel when I am driving to work behind the wheel of beautiful Mrs. Trumbull: everyone is smiling at me and waving and giving me the thumbs-up. And yesterday, this really cute guy leaned out of his window and yelled, “Nice ride!” to me and winked, which had me feeling pretty good until his girlfriend leaned forward in the passenger seat with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a pierced upper lip, and gave me the finger.
So, as I’m pulling in to the parking lot of Chromacorp®, and wondering to myself why a cute guy like that would wind up with such a skank, I look up to find Austin Houston’s illiterate handiwork, and it’s just par for the course on a morning like this. Luckily, a handy supply of moist towelettes is never too far out of reach, and in just a few “Hawaiian Breeze”-scented swipes, my parking sign is once again clean and dignified: “reserved for… Mr. S. Patrick”. It’s not much, but in my world of cubicles, entry-level management, and $25,000 salaries, it’s still something. And Mrs. Trumbull loves her parking spot.
I work in the Nomenclature Division at Chromacorp®. The Nomenclature Division consists of me, three girls, and our supervisor, whose name is Helen but whom we are required to address as “Mrs. Rosenfeld”. It’s our job to name colors for clients, which can be anything from cosmetics companies or paint manufacturers to food producers. We are the ones who decided that the green shirt you’re wearing is actually “New Bamboo” and that your daughter’s bedroom is painted in that just-so shade of pink called “Glass Slipper”.
It had already been a rough week at work and it was only Wednesday. On Monday, that bitch Mrs. Rosenfeld walks into my office, with what I immediately recognize as a New Account folder under her arm. Mrs. Rosenfeld is an exceedingly unpleasant woman, with a narrow, pinched-up face and a shock of brittle dishwater-blond hair. Sometimes when I see a pay phone I am tempted to call her cell phone, disguise my voice, and hiss, “Condition, Helen! You’ve got to condition!” Anyway, she walks into my office, wearing the same god-awful navy blue suit she’s worn every Monday since I started working there. It looks as though she bought it off of Alexis Colby back in 1986, and cut the shoulder pads out in her sole nod to fashion some time back in the 90s, which instead only makes her look as though she’s malnourished or else wearing her big sister’s hand-me-downs. So, I’m mentally naming the navy blue of her suit “Mediocrity” when she drops the folder on my desk and says, “Goth!”
I look up and see her grinning at me, her tobacco-stained teeth showing, her expression exactly that of someone who doesn’t really care to smile very much, but is trying it anyway because it may make whatever unpleasantness is about to come a little less unpleasant.
“Umm, good morning, Mrs. Rosenfeld” I muttered. This always bothered me because I am 43 years old and I haven’t really had to address anyone as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Anything since I was collecting money for my paper route when I was 14. “Excuse me…?”
“Goth!” she exclaimed, again, and went on to explain that the New Client folder which she had just dumped on my desk was for Lacrimosa Cosmetics, a line of products targeted towards the Goth market. My job, apparently, was Red.
Lacrimosa’s entire line was 15 shades: 3 black, 2 green, 2 blue, 1 yellow, and the rest red. Seven shades of red, and the client wanted ten viable names for every shade. Ten! And she wanted them by Thursday, by 10:00am for a fucking PowerPoint presentation for the client. I’ve worked with this client before, too, a humorless cow from behind the former Iron Curtain named Lenochka Fatassovich. We had the torturous task a couple of years ago of naming her failed line of Pageant Cosmetics sold with the Honey Boo-Boo name.
So, by Wednesday, yesterday, I was already in the middle of a bad week. I had stared at these seven shades of red for hours, and these were not your typical reds, either. These were not pretty, sexy shades of red we might associate with fire engines, candied apples or the lips of a Geisha. These are the murky, black-tinged shades of red more common in those “Blood on the Highway” and “Red Pavement” videos they show in driver re-education classes. The hawkish sound of Helen Rosenfeld shrieking, “Goth!” kept playing over and over in my head. I had googled every possible variation of “blood”, “gore”, “coagulation”, “hemorrhage” and “unhappy teenage girl” I could think of. Out of 70 required submissions, I had come up with exactly twelve, with exactly 24 hours to go before Lenochka Fatassovich would storm in to the office wearing a huge fur coat when it’s 74° outside. Anyway, I was just about to add “Uccidimi”, which loosely translated is “kill me now” in Italian, to my list of submissions, when who should walk into my office but Felicia Birdsong, the insufferable Pollyanna from Human Resources, who inexplicably insists that we address her as Felix.
“Good morning, Sean!” she chirps as she practically skipped into my cubicle. “Gee, it’s a fan-tabulous morning, don’t you think?”
“Oh, hi, Felix” I answered, hoping she didn’t notice me rolling my eyes at the sound of her voice. “What’s up?”
What is up is that on top of my current assignment, aka: “Mission: 70 Shades of Gore”, I had been chosen by the Human Resources department of Chromacorp® to write the copy about Nomenclature Division for their updated Orientation and Recruitment Pamphlet. 200 words or less on Color Nomenclature and What It Means to Me due by Friday. Fuck me now.
“We heard you keep a blog. This should be super-perfect for you!” she twittered as she fluttered away, humming. At least I added one more possibility to my list of submissions for Lacrimosa: “Ucciderla”, which means “kill her” in Italian. Lenochka will love that one.
So since yesterday, along with being veiled in a thick, gooey coating of Goth red, my mind has been occupied with Thinking About My Job. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that over-analyzing anything which we do, or think, or see every day is almost never a good idea. It’s easy enough to get dressed and get out of the house every morning until you start asking yourself why you always put your left sock on first or why you always count to a hundred mentally while you’re brushing your teeth. So here I am, thinking about my career in Color Nomenclature here at Chromacorp®, and wondering how the hell I ever got here.
The first time I ever had an answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” it certainly wasn’t this. I wanted to be a Rabbi. That was particularly odd because I grew up in an Irish Catholic family.
I remember it well. It was 1979 because the Iranians had just kidnapped a bunch of Americans and we were all collectively counting down the number of days they were in captivity. “Day 79 of the Hostage Crisis” and bumper stickers showing Uncle Sam giving someone the finger with the words Fuck Iran on the backs of patriotic vehicles everywhere. I was about 9 years old at the time, and I was with my dad at Lexington Market in downtown Baltimore. Dad was buying crabs and arguing with the man behind the counter about the price, when I turned around and saw him. This man, this vision, was walking towards me. Over six feet tall, blindingly handsome, dressed all in black with a beautiful long coat down to his feet, an impeccable, fur-trimmed black hat and these beautiful curls falling down the sides of his face. I was entranced. I tugged on my father’s hand, and asked him, “Dad! What is that guy?”, to which he answered, turning back to the fishmonger, “I dunno, some kind of Rabbi, I guess.”
I decided then and there that I wanted to be a Rabbi.
I was in fourth grade at the time, enrolled in Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow parochial school. We weren’t a particularly religious family, we only really went to church on Easter and whenever my grandparents came for a visit. But my dad’s mother, who really wasn’t his mom but was his father’s second wife, apparently came with boatloads of money and insisted on a “proper Catholic education”. I overheard my mom on the phone once, telling her friend Connie, “If the old battle-axe wants to pay for that ridiculous school, who am I to argue?”
And so it was a couple of weeks later, when we were in class with Sister Dessicata, an ancient nun who, despite being completely wrinkled and withered, had the clear, melodic voice of a young girl, like the voice of Snow White in the Disney movie. Kids around the school used to whisper that she had made a pact with Satan so she could live forever and she was actually over 500 years old. Anyway, she asked the class one day if we had an idea of what we would like to be when we grew up. Amy Baker answered “structural engineer” and somebody called her a dyke and threw a pencil at her head. I didn’t even know what a dyke was. Then it was my turn, and when I told Sister Dessicata that I wanted to be a Rabbi, her face got all flushed and she burst out “Jesus Christ!” and grabbed me by the ear and dragged me all the way to the Headmaster’s office. My dreams of being a Rabbi were over.
But I digress. Somewhere along the line my life was forever changed by four little words: “Cherries in the Snow”. My mother’s lipstick had fallen out of her purse, and rolled towards me across the floor, coming to a stop at my feet with the bottom of the tube facing me. I picked it up and read the label: “Cherries in the Snow”. And I saw it. I saw that the color inside that tube was not red. It was, indeed, Cherries in the Snow. The jeans I was wearing were no longer blue, they were Indigo, and later “Faded Glory” and later still “American Dream”. I became obsessed with colors and the stories they can tell, and after a two-year program in Color Theory at Lancaster County Community College, my career here at Chromacorp® was born.
So, I pulled an all-nighter last night. Drinking Red Bulls and smoking a bunch of pot I bought off of my next door neighbor’s kid. I thought a lot about my job, and jobs in general; about how the daily grind can transform doing even something you love into drudgery. The sweet art of defining the color of a rose can become a 70-submission deadline dangling over your head like some eastern-bloc Sword of Damocles. The trick is in remembering the rose, and remembering the heady, waxy scent of that lipstick, and how Cherries in the Snow looked on your mother’s lips.
And so, I managed to finish my copy for the Chromacorp® Orientation and Recruitment Pamphlet. I hope Felix likes it.
“A career here at Chromacorp® is a career in color. Here you will have a unique opportunity, to become a servant of beauty, naming and defining the thousands of colors which please our eyes and enrich our lives every day. And also, to become a servant to the merciless, insatiable machinery of commerce, by reducing the essence of everyday beauty to the banality of a commodity, another way for someone to make money. So, welcome! Welcome to Chromacorp®, where you can serve your community, serve God, and serve Satan, simultaneously!”
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