....Meanwhile, back in the board room

(We open on the same board room from my March post. There are subtle changes. Instead of a grease stained pink pastry box containing crumbs and half a bear claw, we see the camera pan to the end of the long table where the lumpy businessmen and women have gathered around their co-worker who has just blown out the candles on a large, unimaginative sheet cake. They halfheartedly cheer as they take off their degrading conical party hats and begrudgingly make their way back to their seats. Suddenly the large chair at the other end of the table swivels around to reveal the head executive, who was present but beneath our notice up until this time. His fingers are jammed into the fat fold that triples as a chin.)

"All right, now that we've finished our distraction for the afternoon...."

(The birthday girl lowers her eyes and slowly removes her party hat)

"We can get started."

(The table creaks as he lifts his enormous body and begins to pace the room, hands behind his back. His co-workers can't help but find their minds wandering to Kafka's 'Metamorphosis.')

"As you all know, in this time of economic downfall, our contract with Wal-Mart's department of confusing marketing has been cancelled. We are down, but not completely out. Thanks to my keen business acumen I have saved us all by signing supplementary contracts with various mall stores. This should keep us afloat until Wal-Mart has some kind of PR nightmare that requires our help to distract the public again. The first mall store to request our aid is Aldo. Thoughts?"

(silence permeates the room as the suits try to hide the fact that they are secretly eating cake under the table as he talks. We hear an exaggerated sigh from the same female who piped up last time)

"Sir...how quickly do we need to launch this campaign?"

(The boss half-turns from his hands-behind-his-back stance, interrupting his thoughtful gaze out the window as he imagined himself to be as dashing in real life as he is in his imagination, having watched one too many episodes of 30 Rock and mentally pasting his face over Alec Baldwin's.)

"Pretty quickly. We already have enough exposition and scene setting text to drown a horse here. And call me Jack."

"Uh....but, sir, your name is.........."

"I know what my name is. Call me Jack. Please."

(uncomfortable pause fills the room)

"Okay........JACK. Since you want this done fast, stay with me here. Aldo sells shoes. Right?"

(All heads in the room swivel in the boss.......er.....Jack's direction.)

"Correct."

(The heads snap back toward the speaker)

"What do shoes make you think of?"

(Heads swivel back toward Jack)

"What? Clowns! Obviously! That's brilliant, we'll put clown shoes on a mannequin and put it in the window! Perfect!"

(A shuffle as everyone prepares to do just that.)

"No, no no. That's not it at all." (everyone resumes their seats) What we need to do is make people THINK about clowns without being blatant. Because everyone knows when you think of clowns you think of shoes, it's a transparent market strategy."

"You're right........so what's the plan?"

"Well, the opposite of clown shoes is pointy stilettos. So.....what if we did that? And legs. Just legs."

"Hmmmm........I don't think I like that. It's TOO radically different. We need to have SOMETHING in this plan that makes them think of clowns, or else how are we going to sell shoes?"

"That's just it....the legs are upside down.........."

(pregnant, breathless pause)

"In a pile of BALLOOONS! And what's more, there are inflatable guitars in there too!"

(A flurry of excitement as the businessmen agree and we hear little sound bites of conversation such as, "Let's not even buy new balloons, let's look through the promotional drawer of free crap that clients send us with their logos printed on them!" and "I sure do miss my 401k.....")

"I love it! Let's do it! Meeting adjourned!"

(The room empties quickly as all the businesspeople stampede toward the door, the vision clear in each of their minds. As the camera pans back across the room we see papers float gently to the ground as we zoom in toward the end of the table where the birthday girl has taken the remains of her cake onto the floor and is stabbing at it with a fork, her hair disheveled and a wild gleam in her eye.)

"Happy birthday to ME..........."