Middle Class Love #Wattys2015

Project Murder

D.D.

Rosh is getting better. I force fed him some glucose water. The poor thing was weak to resist. He's getting stronger though. I expect there'll be payback time for all this. Till then the hospital staff have put him on a diet of rice congee. I sneak in a piece of chocolate when nobody's watching.

Today is the day we have tentatively dubbed 'Operation Sea Lion' in honor of Hitler. Either we will fail to convince the client of our idea or she will fail miserably to prove her point to us. Laptop in hand , we marched into the conference room to find her inside. Despite the Air Conditioner being on, she pretended to be a sweaty mess. It irritated all of us to watch her incessantly brush her neck with her silken handkerchief. In an exaggerated move, she wiped her face forcefully with the handkerchief, allowing her eye make-up to spread across her face. She looked more-or-less like The Joker with the smear. Picking up the mirror, she squealed in horror and made a dash for the bathroom to redo her make-up. All of us were frustrated beyond measure.

Her Majesty returned half an hour later with a few words of complacent apology. We gave our superficially sweet smile reassuring her that her comfort was our concern.

"Awwwwmmm..." she began in an almost Lucky-like drawl "You see, the models are not white enough."

I stopped Matthew from responding to her accusation.

"You see.." she continued "They are overdressed. I would prefer them topless."

Matthew disguised his annoyance in reason and calmly replied "Madam, they couldn't get any whiter. We could see green lines of throbbing veins through their skin."

She raised her eyebrows and said "C'mon Matthew."

Matthew raised his eyebrows as well "Yes Ma'am, I am coming to the point. Even if we applied tonnes of the make-up on them they would just look fake."

"Can we paint them?"

She was going from lame to intolerable.

"Ma'am, maybe we should change the idea of the campaign."

"Look Monica" she said, directing her falsetto towards me "If we show off some color and body, the men will be enticed."

"Ma'am" I said flatly "Our target audience, if you recollect, is women. What role do the men have here?"

"C'mon Matthew, don't you buy 'Axe' just because of the women in the ad?" she asked Matthew while faking annoyance.

Matthew frowned and said "No. Why the devil would I? I am a married man. Were I a bachelor, I still wouldn't"

"Ma'am, we cannot afford to have semi nudes or even scantily clad women on the campaign. It poses a huge threat to the company as well your brand. Feminists and even men wouldn't take it too kindly." I asserted.

In the end, we agreed to go ahead with the ads that were rejected. They had better visuals and content on them. Matthew and I headed for the cafeteria. We had enough of that woman and her superciliousness. Between sips of coffee we observed that she had ordered milkshake for herself every ten minutes. "Hydration I believe" Matthew ridiculed. "I suggest that we attach the bill for the milkshakes as part of the final bill." I suggested. Although this was met with laughter Matthew thought it to be a good idea.

I pulled out my phone from the pocket of my pantsuit. There was a text message. From Rosh. I beamed, forgetting that Matthew was sitting right in front of me. "Hey ,Monica. Am I privy to all your moments of love???" he teased. I looked up from the phone and said "If you had the courtesy to, you'd have turned off the video chat that day. BTW Rosh has been discharged. "

Song: 'Brave'- Josh Groban

Mood: Triumphant!!

Yours Happily

Monica Lawrence Roshan