The curious birth of the corporeal Hate Beast

Without giving away any lurid or incriminating details, I am sorry to report that things are getting rather dire here at [heretofore moderately unpleasant job that is not in Manhattan]. I am under-utilized, I am bored, and I am beginning to chafe at the realization that Fuckface Ravioli not only has a stupid fucky face, but also, as far as I can tell, is operating with roughly the native intelligence of an ear of corn.

Things came to a head last week, when we met to discuss the upcoming advertisements for one of our products. Per standard practice, I had come up with three rough concepts – one that emphasized features, one that emphasized connectivity, and one that emphasized portability.

In what I considered a reasonably clever execution, the “portability” ad was set up as follows:

There was a picture of the product.

There was a picture of a dog, looking at the product.

There was text that read:
“Follows you everywhere. Fits on your lap. Won’t drool on your shoes.”

… and beneath it, some more text:
“Whether you’re on the road or on your couch, the [product] is your new best friend.”


And yes, I do realize that this is an odd way of conveying the idea at work when I could have just posted a sample of that mock-up here, but I decided against doing that. Why? Because...

a) doing so could endanger my job security, and
b) I refuse to believe that anybody actually needs the visual aid.

You’ve read the above description, and you’ve had a couple seconds to think about it. I’ll even give you a couple more, just because I’m feeling generous. Go on, I’ll wait.

Ready?

Great – because at this point I’m just going to go ahead and assume that it is extremely fucking obvious, despite the lack of a picture, that the ad in question was cheekily comparing PDAs to lapdogs. And also, that you deduced said cheeky comparison in the time it took to read the above paragraphs, whereas Fuckface Ravioli had had the concept in his possession for more than a week, which makes what happened next even sadder.

“So, Kat,” said Fuckface, his voice floating out between the clenched rows of his artificially-whitened perma-grin. “About these concepts.”

“Well,” I replied, “I’ve gotten some feedback from a few different corners, and people seem to like the connectivity angle. But of course, it’s ultimately up to us, so I’m interested to hear what you think.”

“Oh,” said Fuckface, “Well, I like that one too.”
There was a pause.
“Okay,” I said.

Fuckface nodded, still grinning, then said, “But the one with the dog…”
Another pause.
“…I didn’t get it.”

I smiled politely.
“Beg pardon?” I said.


Fuckface laughed in an oh-aren’t-I-adorable sort of way.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m not the most creative person, but I just didn’t get it,”he said in a slightly-self-deprecatory-but-mostly-just-matter-of-fact tone that struck me as highly inappropriate given that he was admitting outright to being as dumb as a box of hair.

I would have been only fractionally more horrified if he had been like, Oh, yeah, toilets… I never did learn how to use them.


“Well,” I said, still smiling despite the sudden sensation that my internalized rage was forming itself into a corporeal Hate Beast that would shortly burst out of my stomach, Alien-style, and poke Fuckface Ravioli’s eyeballs out with a pen. “The idea is, the [product] is portable, friendly, and makes good company. You know, like a dog…”

Fuckface Ravioli was looking at me with the vacant-yet-expectant expression that you usually see on Miss America pageant finalists.

“…except, without the potential downsides of having a dog, like, say, drool.”

There was another pause, in which I continued to smile politely and Fuckface continued to pageant-stare and my stomach continued to serve as an incubator for a Fetus Made of Rage.


And then, suddenly, a light seemed to dawn in Fuckface Ravioli’s dead, dewy eyes.
He smiled.
I smiled.
He chuckled.
I chuckled.

“Yeah,” he said. “I still don’t get it.”


And then... well.

The end.