I’m lucky enough to spend considerable amounts of my days involved in what most people refer to as creative endeavors. Sure, there’s a lot of “business” that goes along with it, but the end result is that I get to make commercials or do funny voices or write product rollouts for the internet or direct voice actors for a project that will eventually be used to teach developmentally disabled students.
The one denominator that almost all of this work has in common is that it either is, or is part of “story telling”. Whether a commercial, or video game or even voice mail, there’s a story to tell. Some may call it engagement, but a rose by any other name…
When I say storyteller, I may be including a fairly broad expanse of people, from writers to advertising creatives to artists to lawyers, chefs and stand-up comics. Clearly, there are people out there who tend to lean more towards being the audience than towards being the person on stage.
For example, when you’re in the grocery store waiting in line, do you gaze at the 35’ish, slightly balding, man wearing an old Banana Republic t-shirt, cheap sweat pants and flip flops, with a 2 day growth (unintentional) in front of you? Do you look into his cart at the 3 six packs of domestic canned beer, Hungry Man frozen chicken dinner, can of Oust deodorizer spray and People magazine and wonder what his scenario might be? Do you start to possibly make things up like, he’s got a 60”high def TV. and he has a couple of buddies coming over to watch football. The chicken dinner is strictly back up to have in the freezer. The three guys are actually going to chip in and get one of those 3 medium pizza deals for Pizza Hut. The spray is obviously for the bathroom, because we all know what happens when 3 guys get together and drink and eat too much. And I’m guessing the People magazine is also destined for the bathroom.
And then do you think, when the football game is over they’re going to go out and rob a Kay’s Jewelers and while fleeing the scene, the slightly balding man with the chicken dinner in the freezer is going to get shot by a pursuing police officer?
Well, welcome to my world. Although it isn’t always like this.
Sometimes the thoughts might be a bit more reality based. Often they aren’t nearly as elaborate. Sometimes I don’t really have thoughts per se, as much as I have questions, such as wondering if the frozen chicken dinner might have been destined to be his lunch and the beer was to accompany him to some party, or wondering if his appearance may be due to recently losing a job.
For example, I was at one of those large chain drug retailers the other day. It tends to be the same old story that as you approach the checkout counters you see the massive pile of castoffs. At some point during the process, it might seem that retaining one’s cash would be better than ownership of the item. Of course there tends to be lots of candy and snack items in the pile, along with toys. The general assumption was that the parent wrestled said item from their child’s hand just as they approached the register. Not being a parent I can’t be sure if this is simply the result of some parental thing that causes them to check their children’s person at the very last possible minute for said contraband, or as I actually suspect, a clever way to keep their kids quiet until they are almost out the door.
This whole in-store parenting situation is enough to ponder, but on this particular day I was thrown for a loop. Amid the pile of discarded candy, cookies, chips, toys, hairspray, quart of motor oil, 64 count package of AA batteries, child’s hoodie (size medium) and 4 assorted DVD’s sitting under a DVD clearly labeled Cannonball Express, was a box of Tampons, 24 count.
I’m not a woman and I haven’t had the pleasure of ever writing any feminine hygiene copy. Nor do I tend to get into philosophical debates with my female friends regarding such subject matter. In fact, my total knowledge is what may have reached my subconscious via the repetition of television advertisements. This might explain that while I have no findings to prove this conclusively, my gut reaction is that wings are better.
But on this particular day, I stopped in my tracks in complete bewilderment. In fact, the checker had to say “next” 2 or 3 times to arouse me from my stupor. I was left with this question, what would have to occur to someone purchasing a box of Tampons to place them in this giant pile of rejected items, right before hitting the checkstand? Is it perhaps that somewhere between the soda aisle and checking out, they started to go through menopause? Were they overcome with guilt for the environment and decided to go the sea sponge route instead?
Perhaps I may never know, but it won’t stop me from wondering.
So the question I might have for you, my friends and readers, is this the description of someone with a storytellers mind at work, a person who is need of therapy or perhaps both?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
… as another “creative” guy, I’m gonna have to vote for *both*.
Trust me, if a tenth of the stuff that goes on inside my head got out, I’d be taking pills out of those tiny cups with the rest of the guys in the rec room.
I think it’s also a sign of curiosity about how others think. What would lead them to do the things we observe?
For example, I went out for dim-sum a while back and saw this white woman who was dressed in some S-Mart style red and gold Chinese outfit. Whaaaaatttt? Honestly – what was going through her mind when she got dressed? I turned to my wife and said: “Honey, where are my lederhosen? I might want some German food later!”
Tell you one thing – this job is a great outlet for, uh, *quirky* minds…
Whatever it is you boys are suffering from, I’m afraid I’ve got it, too. As for the abandoned white mice, my guess is she was waiting to read her pregnancy test while she shopped and got the results as she approached the conveyor belt.
Another gem of a column, J.S.
I’d say you’re just another creative guy. But there are differences. One of my agency writing partners used to have those kinds of thoughts but with an obsessive-compulsive bent. He’d go to a strip joint and come up with entire life scenarios for some of the women, not just in his head but telling them to me like they were facts, and asking my opinion of his correctness. He once looked at a single photo in a “900 number” ad and had a background of the girl pictured.
The downside to this is that he often was guilty of judging the book by its cover–or, more appropriately, the person by his imagination. As long as you don’t let the story you’re making up cloud your perception/judgment of the person, I’d say it’s just a harmless, constructive creative exercise that keeps you out of jail or the mental ward.
The difference with me is that I imagine comedic scenarios like an episode of SEINFELD or CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. Rather than assume what the people are doing, going to do or where they came from, I imagine “What if” to amuse myself (and my wife if she’s with me). My downside is sometimes having to control my inner laughter while standing beside some 7-foot tall, 4-ft wide Raider fan who’s wearing a body full of anti-social tattoos (else I end up with a tattoo of his fist on my face).
As for the tampons, I offer the following possible explanations:
1. They were dropped by a boyfriend/husband buying them for his lady who spied one of his man-pals.
2. A curious-but-clueless kid had picked thrown them in the cart thinking they were something else and Mom found out while unloading.
3. (Boring but most likely) A frugal (re: cheap like me) shopper picked them up thinking they were on sale, found out they weren’t and decided to pick some up at the dollar store instead.
4. (Least likely but most appropriate) A fellow creative like yourself put them there just to make you wonder.
Thanks and keep up the creative.
–Mike
Mike’s #2 sounds about right. The “something else” in “thinking they were something else” most likely being tiny, vanilla-flavored Push-Ups. “Mommy, these pocksicles taste like the pink stuff in our walls that Daddy sez keeps us warm in winnertime”.
It’s fun to create scenarios, although the reality is usually far more mundane. The woman probably realized that the tampons weren’t such a great deal afterall, and since she already had a stash at home, she’s just wait till she did her Costco run the following week and buy them cheaper there. As for the Banana Republic shirt guy, his wife gave him a list–the Oust was because she couldn’t take his stench anymore, the People magazine her guilty pleasure, the Hungry Man frozen chicken dinner because she was going to a chick-flick with her friend and didn’t feel like cooking for him. As for 3 six-packs? I’d say they were to get her husband sufficiently loaded so when she came home after the movie, he’d be passed out and she wouldn’t have to have sex with him.
J.S, I get such a kick out of your mind and how it never stops to amaze and delight.
As far as putting back the 24 count of Tampons – she had just read an article that cotton was so much healthier and she knew she could buy them at TJ’s for cheap. Smart woman, but she better hurry before it’s too late and she might have to also buy a new pair of panties.
You’re the best in the West!
Love you!
KC
I don’t know, but if you ever figure out the answer, you’re probably good enough to explain the story behind all of the single shoes I see abandoned by roadsides everywhere!
Yes, I do have a theory regarding those shoes. I believe the placement of these shoes has a significance not unlike the Nazca Lines in Peru. We are not alone.
Personally? I think it was a guy named John buying them for his girlfriend, got a “Dear John” call on his cell while waiting in line. Not that that ever happened to me or anything…. or it was a budgie thaing… nevermind…
J.S. You’re an excellent storyteller which is probably why you’re a successful Creative Director. My favorite part was the guy and his buddies robbing a Kay’s Jewelers. Jack