PlazaJen: Passion Knit

In a recent brainstorming, we were discussing ideas for an upcoming new business pitch, and for those of you who learned everything about advertising from Melrose Place? Let me be the first to banish the romance and exotic nature from your mind. Yes, I got to talk to Bryan Adams last week, but I also deal with a lot of whining and begging and stupidity that isn't nearly as entertaining to blog about. Heather Locklear's character would not exist in a real ad agency because not only did she do account management, she did creative, and, well, she also did her employees. All in addition to being a landlord!

Anyway. We were discussing the point at which we leave & take the prospective clients to lunch. Because these kinds of meetings resemble nothing short of a strategic military operation, we are throwing around every possible idea/solution: limo? 15-person passenger van? walk? And I was all, OH SHIT, I hope we don't walk 10 blocks in this 95-degree heat, because if I don't die on the way, I am going to look like I just got out of the shower, with my hair plastered to my forehead in an extremely unattractive way, not the sexy way, no, please let us NOT WALK. Blessedly, walking was nixed. Then, my boss says, "Hansom?"

Because we have these horse-drawn carriages on the Plaza, and some of them are wire pumpkin cage-carriages entwined with white boas and mini xmas lights. And I broke the cardinal rule of brainstorming, which is that there are no bad ideas, and I boomed at him, "ABSOLUTELY NOT."

He hasn't stopped giving me shit about that one. But I can take it! It was funny, and yet, I wasn't risking one minute of time on the notion that it might actually be our lunch transportation. Not that it was REALLY going to happen? Because I think they only do the horse rides at night and on the weekends. But there was no way in HELL I was riding around the Plaza in a horse-drawn carriage over the lunch hour in 95-degree heat and risking the chance the horse decides to take a dump, or has flatulence, or dies of heatstroke, or anything else. Not to mention I always associate the carriages with the crime story that broke when I first moved here about how one of the owners of one horse carriage business put a hit (a HIT!) out on the OTHER carriage business owner - both parties involved being ruthless, bloodthirsty: women! I still harbor a secret fear that the FEUD will re-erupt, and it will be that one time I foolishly agree to ride in a Cinderella carriage, and the next thing you know, I'm in some sort of modern-day Western-style shoot-out because I have the misfortune of being in the wrong hansom at the wrong time. And me without my shotgun.

So, Ix-Nay on the Ansoms-Hay. I think even Heather Locklear would agree with me on this one.