As a newspaper reporter blessed with heightened powers of observation, it didn’t take me long to recognize I’d reached the peak of my profession when the pasta people came calling.
I knew it was bound to happen one day, I just didn’t think that day would arrive so early in my career.
Yet there it was, a warmly-worded e-mail from a large pizza company addressed to me, a journalist whose astute take on world events had apparently left me well qualified to delve into the often ignored subject of prepared noodles.
“Hello, Frank,” began the letter from a public-relations company representing the restaurant chain, which I’ll refer to as Big Corporate Pizza Deluxe Good Times Inc. “I hope your day is going well.”
This was certainly a good start, I thought, because it isn’t often that corporations address me by name, unless, of course, my name is, “Editorial Department,” “To whom it may concern,” or “Person Who Types the Words That Fill the Spaces Between the Advertisements.”
Intrigued, I read on. “I am writing today to tell you about the launch of (Big Corporate Pizza Deluxe Good Times’) new delivery pasta.”
Now, I imagine you are thinking to yourself, ‘What more could possibly be said about noodles that hasn’t already been explored in major journals, such as the Daily Rigatoni Expositor and its lesser known but equally feisty competitor, the Red Sauce Gazette.
It turns out that much can be said about pasta, if that pasta is being delivered to your door by a pizza chain that is broadening its menu with tortellini-to-go and other “delectable choices,” including something called “macaroni and cheese.”
The e-mail went on: “If you have any questions about the pasta launch, would like to get a photo, conduct an interview with (Big Corporate Pizza Deluxe Good Times Inc.) leadership, please contact me at the coordinates below.”
I scanned the e-mail carefully, reading and rereading the copy for that extra something that might have convinced me to consider following up with an article.
That was when I discovered there was no offer of free food, not even a measly order of deep-fried cheese sticks. (Cheese sticks do not technically qualify as “food” unless they are accompanied by a vegetable-based side order of something healthy, such as cheese-stuffed jalapeno poppers fried in deep-fried cheese.)
Too often a large corporation will contact me at work in the hope that I will write about their “fantastic” new product because there is “nothing like it on Earth,” and also it beats having to pay for an ad.
As a professional who adheres to a strict ethical code that prohibits me from shamelessly plugging merchandise in an editorial space, I politely decline these offers with a quick note and a thank you.
Then I do my very best to make fun of these products, which to date have included a broad range of genuinely interesting items (some of which cannot be mentioned in a family newspaper because there is no telling what readers might think if I began flogging products that claim to cure certain dysfunctions of the lower male anatomy.
My best guess is that readers would point at me while laughing cruelly and spreading false rumours.) Still, it beats writing about noodles.
