Sometimes I have to let an idea incubate.
Every month I pen a short piece for InThePowderRoom, probably the greatest humor blog on the web. Or, more accurately, the greatest humor blog on the web that has asked me to contribute. And every month, the head editor Sarah reminds me a week before my deadline. The column is titled “What Does He Think?” and involves reviewing products designed for women, but from a male perspective. And since I’m not a broad, each month I freak out because I don’t know much about women’s products. Obviously I’m up on all the latest lip plumper glosses (who isn’t?), but I can’t write about that every month. I’m a professional, dammit!
It often takes time for me to zero in on the main joke of an article. The easy part is to find a woman’s product – but then I have to come up with the angle that makes it worth writing. This month it took me until the day before deadline. I had remembered that a few years back Bic had created a pen line exclusively for women. The company just took existing pens and colored them pink and purple (some had sparkles). Social and traditional media united for an assault on Bic for reducing women to traditional gender stereotypes. It’s not the biggest misstep a marketing team ever made, but they sure took a beating in the press.
During the product launch people took to Amazon in droves to write satirical reviews. Most of them are still up. I didn’t want to rehash someone else’s review, or try to best them. This left me with no original ideas for my article. But my instinct said there was a joke here, and a good one. I had no idea what it would look like, but I had to trust that it would emerge.
I know I sound like a pretentious douche, but it’s a good lesson for me in trusting intuition. And five days later the joke came to me. Not unlike Moses with the tablets of the law, I was visited by a spirit. Also, atop a high mountain, ironically. (I’m an avid rock climber.)
Just for the record I’ve never climbed even one rock. But one time I drove into Yosemite and cracked a Fresca while watching people attempt to scale El Capitan. That counts.
The concept for the Bic piece is this – what if I wrote a review where I never actually reviewed the product? Oh, and a Franz Kafka-esque tie-in would fit nicely, I felt. And nothing is more satisfying to me than finding a joke that was before hidden in the brambles of my mind.
You ought to go read it right now before you step outside your apartment complex on your way to the market and get hit by a bus. Don’t scoff. It happens!
Above image is the Copyright of Hold My Purse Productions, LLC.