Chapter 4 3

3. After lunch, I was busy processing the questionnaire for the nationwide survey of instant food sauce. Because the staff of the mimeograph department printed a questionnaire on the reverse side, the questionnaire was not processed on time.I was drool stamping the envelope seal when Mrs. Pogue came from her office. "Marian," she said, with a resigned sigh, "it looks like Mrs. Dodge of Kamloops has to be replaced. She's pregnant." Mrs. Pogue frowned slightly, seeing the pregnancy as a Corporate infidelity. "That's too bad," I said.On the wall just above my desk is a huge map of the country with red pushpins pressed like measles, which means adding and subtracting researchers seems to be my job.I climbed up on the table, found the Kamloops place, and took down the little paper flag with Dodgers on it and the thumbtack.

"While you're still up there," said Mrs. Pogue, "would you please take down Mrs. Ellis of Bronteleaf? I hope this is only a temporary Says a woman with a tangent knife tried to throw her out of the house, causing her to fall on the steps and break her leg. Ah, please add this new one - Gotti in Charlottetown Mrs. Ey, I naturally hope she'll do a better job than the first one, Charlottetown is always hard to work with." I climbed down from the table, and saw Mrs. Pogue looking at me with a smile on her face, and I was suddenly alert.Mrs. Pogue is warm and kind when dealing with people. She is best at dealing with investigators, especially when she asks you for something. "Marian," she said, "we have a little question. We're going to do a beer survey next week. It's a telephone survey. You know that. Upstairs has decided that we'll do a forecast this weekend. Not so sure. Oh, we could have Mrs. Pilch, she's a solid thing to do. But we don't want to have her with three days off this weekend. You ain't going anywhere else, are you?"

"Does it have to be this weekend?" My question is more or less nonsense. "Hey, we have to come up with the results on Tuesday. You only need to interview seven or eight people." I was late in the morning and couldn't get hard in front of her. "Okay," I said, "I'll go tomorrow." "Naturally, it will be counted as overtime," said Mrs. Pogue before she left. I wondered if she was stinging, because she always spoke in a flat tone, and you couldn't hear anything. I glued the envelope, got the beer questionnaire from Millie, and skimmed through the questions to see if there was any trouble.The first few multiple-choice questions were clichés, and after that there was a test of people's reactions to a commercial on the radio. It was a short song. Advertising offensive.There is a question where the researcher asks the interviewee to pick up the phone and dial a number, then he can hear the song, and then there are a series of questions, asking the interviewee to answer whether he likes the advertisement, and whether he thinks it will affect His buying habits, and whatnot.

I called that number.Because the official research activity will not start until next week, maybe they haven't hooked up the recording yet, and I don't think it's time to make a fool of myself. The phone rang for a while, then a buzz and click, and then a deep bass voice sang, over electric guitar and something like that: Moose, moose, from the dense pine forest, Ding dong, it makes people's heads flutter, drunk, rough and refreshing... Then, with the accompaniment of background music, a persuasive voice as deep as the singer sounded: Any real man, after vacationing like a real man, TIME - Whether you're hunting, fishing, or just relaxing the old-school way, you need a beer that tastes healthy and tastes like a real man.Just cool down and take a big sip of Elk Beer, and you'll know right away that this is the beer you've been dreaming of, and it's a real treat.Sip on Elk Beer, which instantly brings the flavors of the wild into your life.

Then the singer sang again: Ding cluck, head-spinning, drunk, rough and refreshing Moose, moose, moose, moose, beer! ! ! After the music reaches its climax, the recording stops abruptly.Everything was impeccable. I recall several advertisements for this beer for magazines and banners, with a pair of antlers on the label and a gun and a fishing rod underneath.This soundtrack ad highlights that theme, and I don’t think it’s anything new, but the “just take it easy the old-school way” line is intriguing and I love it.Most of the beer drinkers are men with slumped shoulders and pouty bellies, which could easily make them feel vaguely like the outdoorsy man in the plaid jacket in the picture, in a painting The man tramples on a deer, and another shows him picking up a trout that has fallen into his net with a dip net.

I was reading the last page when the phone rang.It's Peter calling.I could hear a little trouble in his voice. "Well, Marianne, we can't go to dinner tonight." "Huh?" I replied, hoping he'd tell me exactly what happened.I was a little disappointed, I was looking forward to going to dinner with Peter to cheer myself up.Besides, I'm hungry too, and all day I've just had a few snacks to satisfy my hunger, and I was hoping for a nutritious dinner.This puts me back to eating boxed meals while watching TV, as Ainsley and I often do in our rush. "What's the matter?"

"I know you'll understand, Trigg," his voice broke, "Trigger is getting married." "Oh," I said.I would have said "that's terrible," but that seemed too light a sentence, like seeing a national calamity as a mere misfortune for which a modicum of sympathy is of no avail. "Do you want me to come with you?" I wanted to support him. "God, no," he said, "that would make it worse. See you tomorrow, okay?" After he hung up the phone, I considered the consequences of the matter.The most obvious consequence would be to be very careful when meeting Peter tomorrow night.Trigg was one of Peter's oldest friends, and he was actually the last bachelor in Peter's group of old friends.Marriage was like an infectious disease, and just before I knew him, two of his friends succumbed, and two more went down the same path almost without saying hello four months after that.At the summer bachelor party, he and Trigg found that there were fewer and fewer people. Once several other people asked their wives to take leave of absence to attend their reception. Afterwards, Peter told me with a sullen face that the atmosphere of the whole evening was somewhat reluctant, The carefree and unfettered freedom that was characteristic of bachelors in the past has disappeared.He and Trigg are like two people who fell into the water, desperately grabbing each other, and they both need to see their own shadows in each other, so that they can feel more at ease.Now that Trigg is also in the water, he has nothing to rely on anymore.There were other law students, of course, but most of them also became families.In addition, they are only friends after graduating from Peter University, which cannot be compared with their classmates in the early years.

I have some sympathy for him, but I know I have to be extra careful.As was the pattern in the marriages of the first two friends, after two or three drinks, he would see me as an embodiment of the woman who had turned Trigg's head.I dared not ask him how that woman did it: he might think I was trying to get some inspiration from it.The best thing to do is to divert the subject. While I was thinking about it, Lucy walked up to my desk. "Could you please write to this lady for me?" she asked. "I have such a terrible headache that I can't write a word." She pressed one elegant hand to her forehead, and with the other hand she passed a piece of cardboard on which was written in pencil: Dear Sir: Oatmeal nachos for breakfast are good, but I found this stuff tucked in raisins.

Ramona Baldwin (Mrs.) A squashed fly stuck to the bottom of the letter with scotch tape. "It's a breakfast oatmeal cornflakes survey with raisins," said Lucy softly.She was trying to gain my sympathy. "Oh, well," I said, "do you have her address?" I made a few drafts: Dear Mrs. Baldwin: We are terribly sorry for what you found in your oat cornflakes, but little mistakes like these are inevitable.Dear Mrs. Baldwin: Sorry to cause you trouble, we can assure you that the food in the package has been strictly sterilized.Dear Mrs. Baldwin: Thank you for bringing this incident to our attention, we always welcome customers to point out any errors to us.

I know that the most important thing is that the word "fly" must not be said clearly. The phone rang again, and this time the sound was unexpected. "Clara!" I cried, suddenly realizing that I had neglected her. "How are you? "Thank you, it's terrible," Clara said, "could you come to dinner, I'm suffocated by not seeing anyone all day long." "Okay," I said enthusiastically, which wasn't exactly a phony gesture, because it was better than eating a boxed TV meal. "when will you arrive?" "Hey, well," Clara said, "it can be any time, and the concept of time is not very particular on our side." There was a bit of distress in her tone.

Now that I agreed to her, I quickly weighed all aspects of the matter in my mind: she invited me to come, treating me as an object of entertainment, and she could have some intimate conversations with me, so I had to be ready to listen carefully. Clara's various problems, I don't like this character. "I'll bring Ainsley, too, okay?" I said. "I mean, if she's free." I explained to myself that it would give Ainsley a good meal, it would be good for her health, she just had a cup of coffee during the break, but inside I The deep thought was that going with her would take some of my stress off, and she could talk to Clara about child psychology. "Okay, why not?" Clara said. "As the saying goes, the more the better." I hung up on Ainsley's office and cautiously asked her if she had dinner arrangements. She told me that she had two invitations to dinner, but she refused.One was the man who was going to testify in the toothbrush murder case, and the other was a dental student I met last night.She was very rude to the latter, saying she would never go out with him again.She said that he lied to her last night that an artist would come to the party. "So are you free tonight?" I asked, trying to clear things up. "Yes, available," Ainsley said, "unless something else comes up." "Then go to Clara's for dinner with me, okay?" I was worried that she would refuse, but she agreed calmly.I made an appointment with her to meet at the subway station. I left the office at five and made a trip to the cool pink bathroom.I wanted to find a quiet place to spend a few minutes doing a little makeup before I left for Clara's house.But Amy, Lucy, and Millie were all in there touching up their makeup, their six eyes blinking in the mirror. "Going out tonight, Marianne?" asked Lucy casually.She and I share the same phone line, so of course she knows about Peter. "Yes," I replied, without further explanation.They were obviously eager for me to tell them more, and that curiosity made me uncomfortable.