I had to interview a copywriter the other day, and I think the intent is to find someone fresh out of school whose soul is still bright and shiny within their [ideally ample] breast, who still believes in the redeeming power of advertising, who gets excited by the novelty of a regular paycheck no matter how low the salary, and who will keep their unfunny sarcastic remarks to their blogs, i.e., Someone Basically Not Me.

So I was startled when I walked into the conference room to talk to this guy and saw someone with gray hair and a resume that stretched back to the mid-70s. “Gentle sir,” I say, “have you lost your way? Perhaps your heart medication muddled your withered head and made you think this was the Early Bird Buffet?” (I’m learning that once you get married you really try to cling to your youth by any means necessary, even if it means making people sad. Especially if.)

Then it gets sorted out that he’s the prospect and I’m the chump who’s supposed to interview him — me, a good 25 years his junior, only 1.5 years in this business, and never interviewed anybody before. Luckily I have a lifetime of experience of worming my way out of things, so I say “This is not a real interview!” and “You’ll be talking to other people after this!” and “I will have to run in about ten minutes!” and “I just got back from my honeymoon and am all fucked out and operating at maybe like 30%!” and, most embarrassingly, “Sorry, this has been a crazy morning!!!”

I laughed loudly at his jokes and nodded sagely at his hard-earned wisdom, including the comment that made his other interviewers cross him right off the list: “Writing for print is exactly like writing for the web.” I say yeah, probably, sounds good, I sure wouldn’t know any better and — oh, man, I gotta run. “Has it been ten minutes already?” he asks. And I say: “I don’t know!” because I don’t have a watch, and I bolt.

Good gracious but these Licorice Altoids are like infant death in my mouth.* Oh so horrid.

*Copywriter 4 Hire! Taglines are my specialty!