The Genius of Poddby CCoB ’85

He was a good looking, twenty-eight year old slice of sleaze with tanned aquiline features and a talent for rescuing the toughest advertising accounts. Behind his sleek wrap-around sunglasses, Lyle Podd had the smug confidence of a man approaching a tollbooth with correct change. As the youngest, oddest, brightest sensation at the firm of York and Sargent, he was certain he could come up with whatever slogan they needed this time. “I’m better than you,” he said to the secretary sitting behind her desk and she nodded in assent.

He sat down on the blue suede couch and waited, cradling his throbbing, perfectly shaped head in his hands. If only his headache would go away. He swore not to go out drinking with his “Fast Crowd” for at least another week. Last night, he and Andy Warhol got so drunk they ended up taking well-exposed pictures of conventional New York landmarks. “All that wasted film,” he thought, rubbing the lenses of his shades for relief. He looked into the mirror on the opposite wall and admired himself. He dressed with precision, doing his best to stay ahead of the strangest fashion crazes. This morning he wore a pair of baggy white trousers made of fried dough, a tight colorless shirt of saran wrap, and a pair of running sneakers. He never tired of his perfection, and the fact that the products he wrote slogans for always failed to work, such as the Foolproof Electric Bathtub Radio For Children and the Home Face Lifting Kit, didn’t bother him in the least.

“Mr. York will see you now,” the secretary said, staring at the cuffs of Podd’s pants, which had begun to rise in the summer heat.

“Thanks, minor employee,” he said, and pinched her cheek.

Podd opened the door and walked into the office of Dick York, the Senior Partner. York, a beefy man in his fifties with arms like short sausages and legs like thin strips of Canadian bacon, was lining up a putt on his carpet. “Be with you in a second,” he said in a meaty, salted voice as he pulled a putter from his brown golf bag and took aim. York was wearing golf shoes, lime green pants, and a yellow cardigan. He tapped the ball lightly and it rolled into an overturned glass on the rug near the wall. “I win!” York shouted and ran to his desk where he pulled a garish trophy out of his desk drawer.

“Like it? I bought it this morning.”

Podd nodded and watched sheepishly as York placed the trophy on a shelf with fifty identical ones.

“Sit down, m’boy,” York said in his no-nonsense way. There was a pause, and then York’s brow furrowed like a corrugated read leather. “We’re in trouble, Podd, and we need you to get us out. If you come through, we’ll triple your salary, give you your own secretary, and make you a partner.”

“And if I fail?” Podd asked, stone-faced behind his new wave shades.

“We’ll call your apartment and make barnyard noises on your answering machine.” York was tough, and Podd admired that.

“Okay, what’s the account?”

York slid a yellow box of lozenges across the mahogany desk. “We’ve agreed to come up with a slogan for the Webber Drug Company to advertise their latest product: Lung Lozenges” Podd opened the box and emptied several lozenges into his hand. They were red, translucent candies that were in the shape of tiny lungs, complete with little pulmonary arteries and the stub of the esophagus. The package described them as “Mint Flavored Candies that Dissolve Excess Mucus in the Lungs.”

“Come up with a trendy, appealing ad slogan that will have every teenager in America buying this stuff by the crate, and have it in twenty-four hours for the Big Board Meeting.” Podd swallowed hard as he listened and his confidence began to waver. He glanced at his wrist-watch, the one with only the number four and no hands, and ran out the door to make the deadline. On the way down, he caught his pants in the elevator and tore a seam in the leg. “No matter,” he thought. “There’s a bakery around the corner.”

Twenty-two hours later, Podd was frantic. He was desperately pacing through Central Park, wracking his brain for a slogan. Fear set in after he spent the night concentrating in his Manhattan loft and only came up with “Don’t Be a Dupe, Melt Away that Crupe… With Life Saving Lung Lozenges”, and “Don’t Grunt Ahemm, Dissolve All That Phlegm with the Miracle Candy that Looks Like a Human Lung”. They were miserable and he knew it. There was nothing catchy or different about them. Had he lost his touch? Forlorn, he sat on a park bench and searched for a means of suicide that would leave the part in his hair intact.

Just then, he heard a frantic chirping from beneath his park bench. Spreading aside some sun withered leaves, he found a small, plump yellow bird that looked like a balled up yellow sock with static clean. Protruding from its wing was a thorn as long as Podd’s thumb. Podd reached under the bench, took the bird in his hand, and removed the thorn with uncharacteristic care and warmth.

“Thanks,” chirped the bird, as Podd stared in disbelief. It tried to make a smile with its beak, but its lack of lips and cheek muscles made it impossible. “You took the time to help me, an insignificant bird, far below you in the Chain of Being, and now I’ll use my magic powers to grant you one wish.” Podd was ecstatic! Without questioning the bird’s strange abilities, Podd explained his predicament and asked the bird for a winning ad slogan. There was a long pause, and then the bird cleared its short, pipe-cleaner throat and squeaked. “I, uh, lied about the magic powers… I guess I was kind of excited about my wing and got a little carried away. Sorry. I really appreciate the favor and if you should ever need a worm or a dried twig, why, just ask and…”

Podd put the thorn back in the bird’s wing and placed him back under the bench, chirping in pain. On his way out of the park, a turtle with a tire-iron through its skull asked him for help, but Podd walked briskly by.

Within the hour, Podd began to get sick. The sleepless night, the gnawing fear, and an unbalanced diet of potato chips and stimulant dip had taken its toll: he had a bad chest cold. Watery eyed and coughing, he roamed the city without an idea. His hair was greasy and disheveled and his pants had gone stale hours ago. He thought momentarily of turning to God but decided he didn’t want to split his fee. Dejected, he walked back to his office and tried to think of an excuse for the executives at the Big Meeting.

At the appointed time, the nine junior executives of York and Sargent Advertising sat waiting for Podd.

“He’s never been late before!” York barked, circling the mahogany table in a green electric golf cart. Just then, Podd entered, and stood staring before the expressionless sea of heavy-jowled faces. He was going to break down and confess his failure: he was no longer fit for the firm. The self-assured genius of yesterday had lost his touch. His lip quivered and he opened his mouth…

He couldn’t speak. His cold was so bad and he had lost his voice. All he could do was cough and point to his open mouth.

York was the first to speak, and then the others followed.

“Brilliant.”

“Genius.”

“Stupendous.”

As Podd hopped up and down, gasping for air, York honked the little horn on his golf cart and howled in ecstasy.

“You did it, son, you did it! In all of my ears in this business I never heard of a better idea. Think of it, a slogan you can’t even hear ‘cause the announcer’s so sick…”

“Sick until he pops a Lung Lozenge in his mouth, Mr. York, and then he can give the name of the product,” said a needle-nosed executive in a high, nasal voice. York slapped the man’s back in gruff approval and gave him one of his golf trophies in appreciation. Chortling with glee, the group of men piled into York’s cart and drove to a deli for lunch, leaving a wheezing Podd behind. Spotting the box of Lung Lozenges, he popped on into his mouth and awaited relief. Within forty minutes, the fallen arches that had plagued him since childhood were gone.