NAPOLEONIC WITHOUT THE COMPLEX.

MORE AMBITION THAN INDIGESTION.

HEROIN GOT ME THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL.

I should explain. 12th grade health class was a rehash of a rehash, with the same “just say no” syllabus taught in both 8th and 10th grade. Incredibly, drugs were just as bad and we were just as bored. Each year required a presentation at the end of the semester. My fellow classmates made simple, informative, and forgettable ones. I wrote a poem instead.

You can shoot it in your arm,

But it will cause you harm.

You can smoke it in a bar,

But only Mexican black tar.                        

You can snort it in a line,

But only when it’s fine.

Think heroin is a delicious dish?

Then you must have a death wish.

And it’ll be no wonder

When you’re buried six feet under.

So listen kids, don’t take the bait.

You’d only be tempting fate

The other thirty plus stanzas were immediately seized by the school administration while I faced disciplinary charges. Apparently, my teacher felt the poem was an affront to her years uncritically pushing drug war propaganda. Like any budding copywriter, I took the feedback in stride, wading through two more rounds of tortured poetry before she reluctantly handed out a passing grade.

Health class at Montclair Kimberley Academy hasn’t been the same since. It went from a pass/fail breeze to a much-maligned graded course. A sterling piece of my academic legacy.

I learned that good writing can get you in trouble.

DON’T LET THEM EAT CAKE.

Perhaps just such a revision to her famous, if apocryphal quip could’ve saved Marie Antoinette from a cruel date with a cold blade. Yet it appears the snide promotion of sweets and other boulangerie delights led to the downfall of the French monarchy. But this idea endured for centuries, long after the last rolling head came to a complete stop.

Right up until I was in middle school, suffering under the tyranny of baked sales. I didn’t want to eat dessert at 10 in the morning, which shamelessly encroached on precious recess time. I wanted something of substance, something I could savor.

I wanted meat. To get what I wanted, I orchestrated the sale of deli sandwiches to bankroll our 8th grade dinner dance. In a speech delivered to the student body, I implored my peers to shed their silly loyalty to bake sales in favor of something a bit…saltier.

It wasn’t for everyone. But I learned then what I know now: That you can rarely please vegetarians. And this was my first taste of selling.

Now I’m not saying the French Revolution could’ve been averted had salted cured meats caught the Queen’s eye instead of baked goods. But it couldn’t have made things any worse.

Then again, deli slicers aren’t that different from guillotines.   

NO, I DIDN’T GO TO AD SCHOOL.

Because I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer.

I write letters to The New York Post. Letters about sports, politics, and extra-terrestrials.

I write 5-star Yelp reviews for New York City’s many landmarks. Crumbling infrastructure interests me far more than crumbling pumpernickel.

I write handwritten thank you notes when staying somewhere overnight. Although word processors probably saved me from wallowing through a lifetime of illegibility.

I write text messages using only my right thumb.

I write wedding toasts that aren’t about me.

I write when I’d prefer to do anything else.

I write limericks over coffee. Was there once was a copywriter from Nantucket?

I write long emails to dear friends with a beginning, middle and link to a relevant Sopranos clip.

I write on legal pads, post-it notes, and along the edges of soon-to-be-discarded pieces of junk mail. 

I write in pencil. As a non-smoker, my morning walk to the office sharpener is the closest thing I’ll ever get to knowing the freedom of a smoke break.

And yes, I write ads, too.