Proper nouns, such as the titles of TV shows, are always capitalized. Words beginning with a vowel receive the article an. And there is no k in the words alcohol or alcoholic. There is, however, a k in Alka-Seltzer. Speaking of which, I need some. Wow, do I have the mother of hangovers today! Remind me never to mix tequila, bath salts, and Venezuelan hookers ever again.
Until our electronic paths cross again, I wish you peace.
Sincerely,
Clinton
SALAD DAYS
For a couple of years, I was a spokesman for a brand of prepackaged salads—combinations of the more popular lettuces, sometimes including a smattering of shredded carrots, all conveniently washed and cellophane-wrapped for the health-conscious man or woman on the go! The gig paid pretty well, and I liked the work: developing salad recipes, posing for a few photos while holding salad, and being interviewed by journalists about, yes, salad. Easy, if typical, spokesman stuff. To mix things up a bit, I tried to convince the salad marketing team to think outside the plastic bag and sponsor a contest I could host called the Great American Toss Off, during which hundreds, maybe thousands, of really gorgeous people could slather themselves in ranch dressing and frolic in a giant swimming pool filled with arugula. I would watch that all damn day, I said, but they didn’t bite.
Instead, the company held a more straightforward contest: Tell us why YOU love salad and you could win a trip for two to Napa Valley! While there, the winners would go wine tasting, take a cooking course at the Culinary Institute of America, and receive a styling lesson from me.
About a week before I was supposed to fly out to California, I called my endorsements agent at the time, Jason, to confirm some of the details of the trip, specifically the expectations surrounding this “styling lesson.” I had assumed it was the “How to Dress Your Body Type” speech I had given dozens of times across the country.
“Not quite,” Jason said. “They want you to talk about styling your salad.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I answered.
“You know, how to make your salad look pretty.”
It took me slightly longer than usual to process the words that had just come out of his mouth. “That’s ridiculous. How long am I supposed to talk about this?”
“You’re contracted for two hours.”
There are things I can drone on about ad nauseam, but decorating lettuce is not one of them. “Two hours? You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “You make salad look pretty by putting it on a nice plate and sprinkling some . . . I don’t know . . . chopped pecans on top. Now, how long did it take me to say that? Three seconds, max? What am I going to do for the other one hour, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-seven seconds?”
Eventually Jason calmed me down, by basically lying through his teeth. “They’ll be so glad you’re there,” he said. “You can talk about whatever you want, salad, clothes, decorating. Just talk and smile. Get your picture taken. Then cash the check.”
I’ll be honest; that part about the check made me feel a lot better about the whole situation.
When I arrived at the culinary institute on the Sunday morning of the grand-prize weekend, the contest winners and their guests were watching a chef cook a pork loin. So I took the opportunity to ask the organizer to clarify my role. After the demo, she said, the winners were going to create their own salads, using the prepackaged blends (of course), and I would help them with their plating, because each salad would be professionally photographed.
“Do you have a nice selection of plates?” I asked. I had told my agent the marketing team should supply me with as many options as possible. Plates, theoretically, could go a long way in salad styling. “Maybe some pretty colors? I could show them how to mix and match patterns. Or create an interesting table with a combination of antique and modern pieces.”
“All the plates are white,” she said.
I took a deep breath through my nose, while nodding and smiling in hopes of disguising my blinding rage. “Okay. That’s cool,” I said. “I’m just curious if Jason had mentioned having a big selection to pull from.”
“He did,” the organizer said, “but we decided that the plates should be white to really showcase the salads themselves. And we don’t want you to do the salad styling for the winners, we want you to inspire people to use the plate that best reflects their vision.”
So, for two hours, I walked around an industrial kitchen, interrupting couples who were grilling shrimp or searing steaks or whisking vinaigrettes to suggest different white plates.
“You know what would look amazing under that salad,” I said to a mother and daughter. “This plate because . . . it’s a triangle. And how often do you see that? Not often enough, if you ask me. Think about the significance. Earth, wind, fire. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It can symbolize whatever you want.”
After an hour or so, I tried fanning the flames of not-so-friendly competition among the breeders. “See that couple over there?” I asked a late-thirties husband and wife from Michigan, whispering and nodding my head toward a couple of newlyweds from Florida. “They’re using a high-gloss oversized round. Big mistake. Huge. Who’s going to be looking at their salad when it’s on top of that gaudy thing? Ah, but this plate. It’s ivory with a matte finish and not too much rim. There’s no way this plate is going to steal your salad’s thunder.”
They looked at me as one might have expected them to, like I was batshit.
Two hours felt like a thousand days and nights. Basically, I was the Scheherazade of Salad, just making up nonsense to avoid not death, but a breach of contract lawsuit. I needed a drink, a massage, a pill. Pretty much anything to make this day go away. Luckily, my friend Lisa was awaiting my return in the very expensive hotel room where we were staying. Usually if there’s a companion airline ticket included in an appearance deal, and I’m traveling somewhere fun or beautiful, Damon will come with me. But he had recently entered the final stretch of writing his dissertation, so he asked if I would mind terribly if he sat this trip out. I didn’t mind at all. I was thrilled he was this close to finishing his doctoral degree. It was hard to believe, but after eight years of his studying and researching, I might someday live in a home without twenty oversized textbooks and huge piles of psychology journals cluttering the dining room table. “Do what you need to do,” I told him, mimicking Ingrid Bergman’s Casablanca stare. “I’ll miss you, darling.”