The Rigby Narratives:
The Ultimate TG Experience
by McKenzie Rigby
as told to Andy Hollis and Jaye Michael
Chapter Twelve -- Blonde Like Me
What do you do when a blonde throws a pin at you?”
I was so bored I didn’t even bother answering. Jack was my best friend and fellow member of what Outrageous Ads called it’s brain trust, but he had been telling blonde jokes for the last fifteen minutes and I was, to say the least, bored. The only surprises so far had been that there were so many and that he had remembered them. Usually, Friday night at a bar like Bloody Bob’s with a friend is a much more uplifting experience.
“Run like hell. She’s got a grenade in her mouth.” Even his guffaws were beginning to wear thin.
“Excuse me,” I interrupted, anything to break the cycle of bad joke after bad joke. “I’m going to ask that girl over there to dance.”
“You mean the pretty one? Over there?”
“Yeah.” I turned my back before I could be asked any more questions or–perish the thought–be told any more blonde jokes. I worked out, albeit not regularly, and at six foot and a hundred and sixty-five pounds, my $500 suit draped nicely over my body and my wavy black hair fell an inch or two below my collar. I usually had no difficulties finding a good-looking woman to join me for an evening of fun and frolic.
“Excuse me.”
She came up to my eyes, which put her at about five-foot six-inches tall in her three inch heels, with light brown hair and green eyes. I wasn’t in love–yet–but I definitely wanted to get to know this girl better.
“Yeah?”
“Would you like to dance?”
“Aren’t you from that table over there? The one telling all those blonde jokes?”
“Well, my friend Jack is the one telling them,” I agreed. “It his bald head. I think he’s got hair envy. I can’t get him to shut up. In fact, I was hoping you would dance with me and save me from…”
“No thank you. Your friend is being really demeaning, but you’re behavior is worse. By not telling him how bad what he’s doing is, you’re condoning and even encouraging it.”
“But…”
Ignoring me, she turned her back on me and returned to the conversation I must have interrupted with her friends. I slunk back to our table just in time for another blonde joke.
“How do you keep a blonde occupied for hours? Give her a piece of paper with the words “Turn Over” on both sides.”
“Damn it Jack, will you shut up already?” I grumped.
“What’s the problem dude?” Jack was actually a graduate of Princeton with an MBA, but when he wasn’t telling blonde jokes he was practicing speaking like a surfer to help him prepare for an upcoming ad campaign.
“Nothing. I just lost a chance to meet a really good looking girl because she was turned off by those damned blonde jokes of yours.”
“Whoa. Bleed off. That sucks.”
“What?”
“Bleed off. You’re getting blamed because you’re near me. That’s prejudice man and it really sucks.”
I was shocked. He was right–sort of. Where I had planned on telling him that he was prejudiced and it was hurting my chances for a love life, I backed off. Sure, he was telling some really crappy jokes, but was that reason for that girl to assume anything about me? I looked back at the girl I had asked to dance and suddenly she didn’t look quite as interesting any more. Instead, I bought us both another beer and Jack moved on to a different class of jokes.
“Why won’t sharks eat lawyers?”
I groaned. This was a yuppie bar and easily a third of the people in it were probably lawyers. The damn fool was going to get us killed yet.
“Professional courtesy.”
Forgoing the drinks that had not yet arrived, I tossed some money on the table for a tip and dragged him outside. It was time to call it a night.
“Gentlemen,” Jonas Hastings glared around the boardroom table, “we are going to loose our shot at this account if someone cannot come up with something BIG. We need ideas and we need them soon. Hank, take your wiz kids,” he pointed to Jack and me, “back to your office and don’t come out again until you have at least one blockbuster idea.”
It was a morose group that sat around Hank Pensivo’s office. Hank was stretched out on the black leather couch with a newspaper over his head while Jack sprawled out on one of the matching chairs, filling it with his girth. I was pacing as usual, burning off energy faster than I could take it in. Coffee cups, soda bottles and empty pizza boxes covered the coffee table between us.
“Come on guys,” Hank beseeched us. “This shouldn’t be this hard. It’s a goddamned women’s hair coloring account. How difficult can this be?”
“I know a ‘narly’ blonde joke about a new slogan for hair dye? ‘Buy a double batch and get a snatch to match.’ Who ever heard of a company making hair products only for blondes anyway?” Jack whined for the umpteenth time.
“The company comes from Sweden,” Hank sighed and reminded him yet again. “They consider themselves ‘experts’ in all things blonde.”
“Can the damn blonde jokes Jack.” He may have been right about that girl’s attitude being prejudiced, but I was still a bit burned by losing my chance with her because of his jokes. “We’ve been at this since Friday afternoon,” I added, turning to Hank, “and it’s now Saturday evening and none of us have come up with any new ideas since about 4 AM,” I croaked. “We’re stale. We need to take a break.”
“You heard Jonas,” Hank responded. “This account could be more than thirty percent of the gross income for this firm. We may not need to stay in this room for the remainder of our lives–or until we give him his winning slogan, which ever comes first–but we do need one and soon. Dig deep. One of you must have something.”
“Nope.”
“Sorry Hank.”
“Okay,” Hank sighed in resignation. “Let’s stretch and get the kinks out; then get back to it in a few hours.”
“Hey! There’s that girl again. You wanna ask her to join us and see if she can help inspire us? Hell, you can even pay them the standard focus group participation fee.” Hank didn’t disagree so he continued, “and I promise, no blonde jokes.” We were back at Bloody Bob’s, Hank too this time. We had promised to leave in just two hours to return to the office and hammer out a campaign slogan, but he wanted to make sure we didn’t go AWOL. I turned questioningly to Hank.
Hank just shrugged and went back to staring at his Vodka martini. He was turning out to be a morose drunk and this was only his first drink.
I didn’t wait for him to reconsider.
“Excuse me miss.” I tapped her on the shoulder. “I was wondering if you and your friends could help us.”
She turned with a bright smile on her face, but that quickly soured when she saw me. “Oh, it’s you again. Couldn’t you take the hint last night?”
“Actually, I did take the hint if you’ll recall–much to your loss–but now I’m asking you AND your two friends here to assist us with a work-related problem.” I paused to see if I had at least gotten the interest of one of her friends.
“We,” I made a sweeping gesture to include Hank and Jack before offering my business card, “work at Outrageous Ads and we’re having a problem coming up with a slogan for a product line. If you would join us for a short while maybe you could help us?”
“Oh come on Caroline,” the taller brunette chimed in. “It sounds like fun.”
“Sure,” the other brunette added. “Cindy’s right. Why not?”
“Because we have plans and are going to leave in about a half an hour,” Caroline responded, but I knew it was a weak come back. I was gaining.
“I’m empowered to offer a focus group participation fee of twenty-five dollars each?”
“Oh, why not,” Caroline strode over to our table and sat down, leaving her friends, and me, to scurry along behind. “But if I hear just one of those demeaning blonde jokes we’re gone.”
“I’ll personally hold Jack so you can pull his black hair out at the roots if he tries even one single blonde joke. How’s that sound?”
Jack was endearingly sheepish as he promised. Hank looked up at Caroline’s arrival and tossed me a quizzical look. He must have missed much of the earlier conversation.
“I’m Caroline,” the blonde introduced herself before pointing to each of her friends, “and this is Cindy and Maggie. Now what kind of work project are we supposed to be helping you with?”
Hank must have caught on as he responded before I could. “We work for Outrageous Ads over in the Glover Building, across the street. We have a potential client–you’ll pardon me if I don’t give you the client’s name–who wants to introduce a series of beauty products into this country. The catch is, they are specially produced only for blondes.”
“Oh well, that leaves us out,” Cindy and Maggie said in unison, sounding disappointed.
“Not necessarily,” I noted. “Were running into a brick wall and so we need as many different perspectives as we can get.”
“Besides,” Jack added, “the only way our client is going to make any real money is if he can convince more people to become blondes.”
“But why would I want to become a blonde?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah,” Cindy said.
Before Jack or I could answer, Caroline asked in a menacingly quiet voice. “What’s wrong with being a blonde?”
“Nothing Caroline,” Cindy responded and Maggie nodded vigorously to show she too agreed. “It’s just that you have the coloring for it. It suits you. I don’t think Maggie or I could pull it off.”
I should have just shut up, but “pull it off” had a peculiar ring to it. It’s much like the only time you should ask a woman if she is pregnant is when you see the baby’s head coming out; there are some questions that just should not be asked. “Does that mean you’re not a natural blonde?”
Her face was instantly bright red and I knew I was in trouble, so I used my advertising skills to backpedal as best I could. “I mean, I never would have guessed.”
Too little, too late.
“Whether I’m a natural blonde or not is none of your business,” she huffed, standing and gathering her drink and purse. “If this stuff is so great, it should make anyone look like a natural blonde. Why don’t you try it?”
With that, she left. A moment later, Cindy and Maggie had made their excuses and left too, trotting to catch up to their friend. I slumped down onto the table and groaned. “My life is over,” I sighed overly dramatically. “We may as well go back to work now.”
“You’re right.” It was Hank. He had that glow in his eye, the one he gets when he’s onto an idea. “We’ve got work to do.”
“What’s going on?” Jack asked. “Did I miss something?”
“The answer Jacky Boy. The answer to our problem,” he said, bubbling over with excitement. “Come on.”
“How can you tell if a blonde’s been using a computer?” Jack asked, trying to lighten the mood in Hank’s office. We had been arguing violently for the past hour and I had offered my resignation twice. I was going for three.
“Shut up!” Hank and I both said in unison. Then Hank added with a tentative smile, “You see, we can still agree on some things.”
“Yes, but apparently not on the important things. I categorically won’t do it.”
“You’ll see white-out on the screen.”
“I said shut up,” we responded in unison.
Turning to Hank, I continued. “If you think this is such a good idea, you do it, or convince Jack here to do it. I can just see him standing on stage, modeling the product and telling blonde jokes.”
“Which would go over like a lead balloon,” Hank answered. “Besides, he’s bald. There’s not enough up there to pull it off.”
“At least mentally,” I grumbled, not quite as quietly as I had meant if Jack’s expression was any indication.
“Look. You know it’s a good idea. It’s different. It will catch people’s attention, just like those borderline porn ads from Ralph Lauren ®.”
“It IS porn.”
“No it isn’t. You’ll be fully dressed.”
“But I’m not blonde. I have black hair.”
“So? That’s the whole point. If our beauticians can use this stuff and make you look good, it will work for anyone.”
“Then it’s just plain weird.”
“Of course it is. Weird sells as you very well know.”
“People will think I’m some kind of ‘sicko’.” I was running out of excuses and I knew that he knew that I couldn’t afford to quit this job. I’d never find one that paid anywhere near as well.
“And you can laugh all the way to the bank. Besides, maybe the client won’t like it…or will want a different model doing it.”
He had me there. I had early on recognized the value of money. From paper routes, to yo-yo string supplier, I had been working since I was eight. The problem was, this was a good gimmick and I knew it.
“Okay. But I want a promise to make a hard sell to the client to find another, better model.” Hank knew I was already running ideas through my mind as to how I could make the idea work, but still make such a bad impression, the client wouldn’t want me.
“Hey Caroline,” Maggie called. “Look at this. I hear this stuff is absolutely great.”
“So you girls are serious about going blonde?” Caroline asked as she glanced at the ad Maggie was pointing to in her magazine. They were back at Bloody Bob’s for a pre-makeover celebration.
“Cindy says she’ll do it if I do it. I’m just not convinced that I’d look good as a blonde.”
“Of course you would and that ad’s the proof of the matter.”
“What do you mean? What’s that ad got to do with proving we should go blonde?”
“Look at that model’s face. Does it remind you of any one?”
“I don’t think so. How about you Cindy?”
“Nope. I don’t recognize her.”
“Sure you do. Think a moment.”
Both girls examined the model carefully, before again denying they recognized the model.
“You met her here.”
“Here in Bloody Bob’s? I don’t remember seeing anyone that looked that good in here. I’d remember that kind of competition.”
“We joined them to discuss the same product being advertised in that ad.”
“The only time I ever talked to anyone about this stuff in this bar was with those guys…”
Caroline just smiled knowlingly.
“You don’t mean…”
Caroline nodded.
What? What Maggie? What’s Caroline talking about?” Cindy stared at the picture again. “Oh? Oooooh.”
Caroline nodded again. “I wonder if he still lets his friend tell those terrible blonde jokes?”
Interlude Twelve
“Damn it Mac, you’re killing yourself. Even the doctor says so. Why do you think he called you a ‘heart attack waiting to happen’?”
McKenzie scowled. He would have asked his sister to leave, but he was at her house instead of home. Plus, it would have been rude after the wonderful meal she had prepared, especially when still at the dining room table. David had been smart and taken Igor for a walk. David was a free agent, but McKenzie was going to have a talk with Igor about deserting him like that.
“I am who I am sis. Not you, nor the physician are going to make me different.”
“Great. So I should start the funeral arrangements now? Remember Jenna? I still wake up crying some nights after dreaming of Jenna. You used to help change her diapers Mac. She worshiped you and I though you cared about her too. Remember how she kept putting off medical exams? By the time she realized she had cancer of the cervix it was way to late. Mac, think for a minute. I’m not asking for a lot, just to have my younger brother around for a few more years. You’re way overweight.”
McKenzie nodded in grudging agreement.
“You have the first signs of diabetes.”
“I’m dealing with it Janice.” His words sounded plaintiff even to McKenzie.
“You NEVER exercise.”
“I walk a lot at work.” This time he clearly whined as he said it and Janice snorted in response.
“Look Mac. You have a crappy job,” Janice waved off his retort and plowed on through her speech. “You have no friends and you spend all of your spare time sitting in front of a computer writing stories in a genre that has maybe a few thousand enthusiasts world-wide. You won awards for your writing in high school AND in college before you dropped out. At least write something normal, something you can get paid for.”
The evening went downhill from there. McKenzie was only too happy when he finally headed for home to get ready for the “early shift” he didn’t really have.
Comments
Why can't such a hair
Why can't such a hair coloring agent exist in the real world, I'm a dirty blonde and wouldn't mind going full blonde if it meant I could become female finally. And McKenzie seriously has issues beyond his physical health, blowing off his family and their advise when they simply care about him, talk about being too stubborn for your own good.
P.S. Part 11 of this story the comment button doesn't show up.