Peppermint Mouthblast Now With Tartar Protection

By / September 29, 2009 /

By Joshua Green Allen, Copywriter

FRANK: Thanks for coming, everyone. Sorry about the last-minute notice.

ANNA: Just tell us who’s fired.

FRANK: No one’s—

KURT: My wife’s pregnant so it better not be me.

MITCH: Your wife is not pregnant.

KURT: She’s—she will be pregnant. Tonight. I can make that happen. And anyway no one knows how to work the color printer except me. You can’t let me go, Frank. Please don’t make go crawling back to The Creative Group. I’ll do whatever you want.

FRANK: Kurt, for god’s sake, get up. Don’t touch me. Go sit down. Nobody’s getting fired.

ANNA: Every time you call a surprise meeting, somebody gets fired.

FRANK: That’s not true. Remember last month? It was about organizing the kickball team.

MITCH: And then you fired Halvetti and we didn’t have enough people for a kickball team.

FRANK: But the primary agenda item was the kickball team, yes or no?

ANNA: You guys, I’m pregnant.

MITCH: You’re not pregnant.

ANNA: I’m working for two here, boss. You can’t fire me.

KURT: She’s gonna want maternity leave! She’s no longer a valuable contributor to this agency! Frank!

ANNA: I … I won’t take maternity leave. I’ll schedule the C-section on a weekend. And my husband can take care of the baby since he’s already unemployed.

MITCH: You don’t have a husband.

ANNA: Edward and I are getting pretty serious.

KURT: Which one is Edward again? The vampire or the werewolf?

ANNA: The vampire.

FRANK: Folks, I just wanted to get us all in a room and talk about what happened yesterday.

KURT: I was making sure that color printer kept doing its thing! As usual!

ANNA: I was getting knocked up. With twins?

FRANK: I’m specifically referring to the creative for Feddema Global.

MITCH: The what now?

FRANK: I just got off the horn with Diane—

KURT: Before you continue, boss, let me just jump in here real quick and say that Mitch has a drinking problem and it’s affecting his copywriting.

MITCH: What!

KURT: I know I promised not to say anything, but to be fair we were both pretty wasted at the time. And I don’t think any promise made at a Bennigan’s can truly be considered binding.

MITCH: Kurt, I am about to do something to you with this stapler that will ensure your wife never gets pregnant. At least not by you.

FRANK: OK, enough. Listen, I take full responsibility for this situation. I should approve every piece that goes out the door, but I’ve been so swamped streamlining the headcount that things fell by the wayside. But I’d like you to help me understand how we arrived at that creative and see if there aren’t any improvements we could make to our process. Sound good?

ANNA: Mitch led the brainstorming.

KURT: He smelled like a beer factory dropped on, like, a place where you make terrible whiskey.

ANNA: And pee. He smelled strongly of pee.

MITCH: You cowards. We all loved the idea. You said you loved it.

FRANK: So, just to be clear, it was you who came up with the line: “It’ll rape that tartar right out yo mouth.”

MITCH: It sounds bad when you say it like that.

FRANK: And Anna, you did the design?

ANNA: I did what I could given the limitations of the concept.

FRANK: I see you took a very … literal approach.

ANNA: Thank you.

MITCH: The client said they wanted “edgy.”

FRANK: Unfortunately, they also said they were going to take their business to an agency less likely to land them in jail.

KURT: Which agency? Are they hiring?

FRANK: Mitch, I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.

ANNA: You said no firing!

FRANK: Ha ha, yeah.

MITCH: This may be the gin talking, Frank, but I hate your fat little monkey face.

FRANK: You’re fired, too, Anna. And your vampire twins. And Kurt.

KURT: What! I had nothing to do with that awesome ad!

FRANK: The color printer’s been broken for six months, and you were asleep under the conference table when we came in here. Nude.

KURT: Well good luck winning the kickball tournament with only one player.

FRANK: Thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stare blankly into space for a while and then set myself on fire by the side of the freeway.

MITCH: Hey, it’s 4:30! Half-price choco-tinis at Bennigan’s!

ALL: Yay!

Joshua Green Allen is a writer living in Denver. His words bring joy to children all over the world. He can be found online at Fireland.