Chapter Two 2

Julie’s head hurt. It hurt so bad that she did something she had never done before in her life: She called in sick and climbed back into bed.

When did this pain first begin? she wondered, as she rolled her pillow into a ball and pulled her very best linen comforter over her head. Was it last night, or did it start sometime even sooner?

Maybe my journal will have the answer! she thought. She reached over to the nightstand, pulled the journal to her, and started to read what she’d written the last several days.

And there was her answer . . . in her own handwriting.

Of course! It was yesterday! During The Doodley Sauerkraut Company presentation.

She had just gone through all the elements of the new campaign and was finishing up with the TV spot about the alligator eating a Reuben sandwich without the Russian dressing when Doodley’s president, J. Worthington Swag, said, “I just don’t get it, Julie. I thought this was supposed to be funny!”

“What do you mean, you don’t get it?” she had said, shocked not only at the question but that anyone wouldn’t understand the obvious symbolism.

“The alligator loves your sauerkraut so much he doesn’t want to spoil it with the dressing! It’s hysterical!”

“But why an alligator?”

“Because alligators are funny!” she’d told him, her voice climbing a few pitches toward high C.

“Look at Wally Gator! A laugh-a-minute!”

“I didn’t care for him either,” JW replied without even a smile.

“ I just don’t get what’s funny about alligators. Do alligators eat corned beef?”

“Who cares?”

“Can they hold a sandwich in their claws? And even if they could hold it, could they reach their mouth with it? I just don’t get it!”

That’s where it had started, all right.

With J. Worthington Swag.

What was wrong with clients like him? Why didn’t they get it?

The alligator gambit was so obvious, and hilariously funny.

Why was old JW so clueless?

Though, to be honest, it wasn’t just JW who didn’t get it. John, her assistant, wasn’t sure alligators were funny either.

Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t really been able to get John on board from the beginning. Nothing she had told him seemed to convince him or even make him understand.

Maybe she needed to rethink John’s role in the creative group.

And Mary Sue, too!

As the head writer on the campaign, Mary Sue wanted to make the lead character a koala bear, for heaven’s sake!

Talk about not getting it!

Koala bears aren’t funny! They’re cuddly!

They only eat eucalyptus leaves and no one puts sauerkraut on eucalyptus leaves!

What was wrong with these people, Julie thought. Why don’t they get it?

I DON’T GET IT WHEN THEY DON’T GET IT!

Julie was having a hard time with this simple question. All this thinking was making her head hurt.

She was confused, and it was all their fault!

So she did what she always did in tough times like this.

She rolled over and went back to sleep.