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Wherever You Go, You Will Always Be A Copywriter

07/05/2019
Advertising Agency
Los Angeles, USA
489
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72andSunny LA’s Natalie Warther shares a poem on the inability to shut off from the writer’s brain that encapsulates her every move
In other industries, employees have the privilege of being able to put their ‘work brains’ to rest while they go about living their personal lives. But not us. For creatives in advertising, the whole world is a constant pulse of brands, strategies, ‘good ads’, ‘bad ads’, rebrands and inspiration for ads you'd burn 100 sacrificial Saturdays to make. We are always on the clock, even at 30,000ft, even when our vacation responders are switched to ‘I'm technically on vacation, but please, please, don't take me off of the emails’. The following piece, by 72andSunny Los Angeles writer Natalie Warther tells the story of the inability to shut off from the writer’s brain that encapsulates her every move. 



Watch your shoulders. 
Watch your elbows.
Watch your feet.

Watch your shoulders. 
Watch your elbows.
Watch your feet.

The flight attendant is tired. 
She sings it slightly differently each time, but never with life. 
She clearly has a script to stick to. 

Watch your shoulders. 
Watch your elbows.
Watch your feet.

She put the inflection on “watch” this time.
Get it girl. I think to no one. Make it your own. They’re loving it. 

Watch your shoulders. 
Watch your elbows.
Watch your feet.

No one’s actually moving for her, though. The aisle is littered with appendages and backpack guts. People are fine and civil on the ground, but the second the wheels go up we move in and start paying rent. 

The cabin is a jungle, and we, its grumpy jungle monkeys, hungry, sleepy, snotty, with iPhone charging cables for hair and Nature Valley wrappers for hands. 

Dignity is sparse in the cabin. How quickly we’ve all gotten to know the smell of each other’s feet.

---

She’s still asking people to watch their shoulders. That’s the one that gets me. Elbows, fine. But shoulders? 

Who wrote this script?

Someone in marketing.

Someone in advertising.

Fuck.

Someone like me.

I wrote this script.

Which agency has Delta?

---

There’s another flight attendant now. She’s pissed, but she gets our respect. She must be so tired of wiping warm butt crumbs off of the chairs when we leave.

People definitely fart in these seats.

---

She’s talking at me now.

What would you like for lunch today?

It is unmistakably a sentence crafted by a copywriter.

They wrote it like that to mimic the way a mother might say it, to reflect the experience of childhood, the experience of being taken care of, of having endless options, of having literal happiness served to you on two fucking pieces of whole wheat bread with the crusts cut off and a side of chocolate milk.

The 1950s are back, and they’re pushing the Pastrami on Rye. 

I can see the presentation.

It’s good strategy.

I couldn’t have written it better myself.

Anyways, if your mother was feeding you freezer safe veggie wraps that came in on a truck from a warehouse in Tennessee for lunch everyday, you’d probably fucking love the campaign.

---

I want her to know that I know what she’s doing, but I panic so instead I ask for water.
She hands it to me with a granola bar wrapped in clear packaging, marked with words like:
100% WHOLE GRAIN
INGREDIENTS YOU CAN SEE AND TASTE
BUCKWEAT. 
QUINOA. 
SUPER GRAINS. 
MILLET.

And that’s when I know: 

these people aren’t fucking around.

If I didn’t know better, I might actually eat it. 
Too bad I work in advertising, and also spent entire years in college reading Health Magazine articles with provocative titles like, “Is Your Latte Trying to Kill You??”

Sure, they gave me an eating disorder it took years of expensive therapy to correct, but at least now I’m not a slave to the hidden sugars in processed cereals and granola bars. 

But I’m still thinking about the childhood thing.

You board the plane and are ushered like cattle to your designated seats in a single file line. This process is overseen by kind, shepherd-like adults who get paid to make sure you make it through the day without dying.

There’s even naptime, and snack time, and juice, and educational videos.

Air travel is preschool. 
We are paying these people for preschool.

And we fucking love every second of it. 

---

I should tell the flight attendant about my epiphany. Maybe she’ll change the script. We’ll call it “testing.” If she asks what gives me the authority to suggest her doing so, that’s when I’ll tell her I work in advertising. 

Don’t worry. I work in advertising. 

Then I’ll hit her with the script.

This is an excellent idea. Is what she’ll say.
And then she’ll dance down the aisle with her adorable little snack cart and deliver the revised script, really singing it with heart this time: 

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,

And me, and the grown men, and the babies, and the mouth sleepers, and the basketball team, and the sock people, and the spitty kids, and the farters, and the businessmen, and the tomato juice drinkers, 

we’ll all respond, just like they promised in the client presentation,

KNEES AND TOES!

KNEES AND TOES!

She’ll wink at me. 

I’ll do something cool like wink back. 


Natalie Warther is a writer at 72andSunny Los Angeles
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