writing for lemons: part II

If you read writing for lemons-part I, you know exactly why I was sitting slumped at the breakfast table drinking cold coffee.

The shears were being returned. Unopened. I reached for the bag of groceries I’d brought in and started unpacking and ... unpeeling.

Every piece of fruit and veg I’d bought, from bananas, cantaloupe, oranges, apples, lemons, to cucumber, tomatoes, and squash, had an annoying little sticker very firmly attached to the skin. Oh, please!

I began washing and scraping the stickers off two dozen lemons. What words of wisdom are sellers trying to impart to consumers, I wonder? What could possibly be of such great importance that it has to be announced on every single piece of fresh produce?

Was it a health warning about pesticide use? Or had lemons suddenly been linked to cancer? Or brain tumors?

I grabbed the Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass (again) and hovered the lens above the label. Hmm … it ... says … ock!! “LEMON.”

Now, I know firsthand that decisions in corporations are rarely made quickly. So I imagine a typical scenario in making such an earth shattering revelation, and wonder: Who wrote the copy on that? And what was their fee? Was the writer with an ad agency, or was he/she plucked from the marketing team? Who developed the concept? Approved the proof? Did it get redlined and redrafted? Did they use an editor to make sure it was spelled correctly? And most importantly: How many branding hours were billed?

If they are going to take the time to label every piece of food for us ijeet consumers, shouldn’t they also offer the explanation in Spanish? “Limon.” Or is this a subtle way of teaching the English language? You know, like we had labeled picture books in kindergarten … table, chair, bed … lemon.

Seems I have more questions than answers. But, I guess if you can get it, writing for lemons would be a pretty safe gig.

writing for lemons: part I

No, this isn’t a piece about being paid for your writing with lemons. It’s part one of writing for lemons. Confused?

Well let me back up a bit.

It all began when I got frustrated with the Fort Knox of packaging that encased a pair of pruning shears I’d bought on sale at Target. I could not, for the life of me, get the gosh-golly-darn shears out of the plastic tomb they lay in.

After fingers and teeth failed to unravel the seal, I took a large pair of kitchen scissors to the thinnest edge of the package. Then I took my electric carving knife to it. And finally, I ran into the garage and revved up my newly acquired electric hedge clippers. But all to no avail. The shears lay ensconced in plastic, allowing quick-and-easy, front-and-back view, but zero access.

Thinking there must be some new-fangled way into the case, I flipped it over and started reading the instructions printed on the back. Now what’s the point of putting all those words on a package when NO ONE can read them because the font is Times New Roman point-minus-three !

I grabbed the Sherlock Holmes type magnifying glass that I keep with my kitchen utensils …

“Do not chew or swallow casing. Do no cut hair with shears. Do not allow children to play with blades. Do not run with shears. Do not …”

Everything but HOW TO GET THE IJEET SHEARS OUT OF THE PLASTIC CASE.

Grrr. I sat down at the breakfast table and sipped the coffee that had gone cold during the 30 minutes I'd spent fiddling with the shears. And then it occurred to me. Even though they had omitted the crucial step—the key to unlocking the plastic tomb—a writer had actually sat down and written all that junk on the back of the shears.

I rolled my eyes and wondered if it was the copy editor who'd cut the line: “Here’s how to open …”


Part two of writing for lemons next week

more on natural cures revealed

Just to be fair, I checked out Kevin Trudeau’s second book (see natural cures post June 6th) which contains an inordinate amount of his favorite words throughout: I and me, and me and I. Overlooking his palpable absence of humility, the second book lacked equally as much as the first, seeming more of an attempt to excuse Trudeau’s behavior and explain why “everyone”, including the government, is out to get him.

Rhetoric aside, I was genuinely amused—to the point that I laughed out loud—when his book jacket read something like this …Trudeau now claims that he’s been a “secret covert operative” for the past 20 years. Huh, guess the prison uniform was simply part of his cover.

kevin trudeau's natural cures

I hate to give his name Web space, but I really want to know why Kevin Trudeau’s book Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About is still on the shelves of superstores like Barnes & Noble? And even more perplexing, if not disturbing, why he now has a second book called More Natural Cures Revealed, sitting right next to his first book on the shelves of those same superstores?

Natural Cures has become a bestseller, not because Trudeau tells the truth—as he claims—but because of saturation marketing and snake-oil sales strategies. Yes, I've sat and watched his infomercials in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. And I've seen him bat his pretty blues at the camera, raising his eyebrows in a triangle of furrowed frustration at those 'evil' pharmaceutical companies and mysterious government agencies he claims don't want us to get well at any cost.

But at what cost are his books still on store shelves? And more importantly, at whose cost?

I've reviewed Trudeau's natural remedies and found no valid reference to documented clinical studies proving any of his cure claims for cancer, diabetes, or Parkinson's disease; in fact, I found much of nothing, and nothing much. My mother has Parkinson's, so trust me when I say that if I thought there was one ounce of hope in Trudeau's claims, I would be force-feeding her large daily doses of Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About.

Unless folks have been hiding under a rock, they must have heard that Trudeau served prison time for his part in a credit card scam; and that he was forced to pay thousands to consumers in redress for false product claims. And that the FTC* fined him two million dollars for making fraudulent cancer cure claims.

Take a look at this, just one of many documents* available to the public. And then please tell me why Trudeau’s face still stares smugly from the shelves of these superstores, spreading false hope to the indiscriminate, the naïve, and the needy who believe their future lies in 'Trudeau's truth'.

(*Here's the URL to the Federal Trade Commission document in case the link fails to work http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/09/trudeaucoral.htm)