Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [21]
‘A kitten?’ said Tony when he arrived home to be greeted by a small orange fur ball. ‘What sort of protection is that going to provide? And I don’t even like cats.’
As he grew bigger and lost some of his kittenish charm, it became apparent that Meggs had also lost his copy of the instruction manual that tells cats that they are required to act cool and aloof. If there was a lap to be had he’d be sitting on it. He was (and still is) the friendliest, smoochiest cat in town.
And the greediest. Like the Catholic priest who develops a taste for expensive red wine, Meggs decided that if he was to be denied the sins of the flesh (having your balls cut off does rather cramp your style in that regard) he should be able to compensate with other sensory pleasures. He became a fat cat.
After a while even Tony had to agree that Meggs was okay for a cat, although he objected to the fact that I let him sleep on our bed.
‘No way - how disgusting. He smells and he’ll probably give us fleas.’
Meggs and I completely ignored this and when Tony was off working slept together all the time. Just as long as I was very careful to brush away the stray cat hairs Tony never noticed, proving my point that Meggs didn’t smell at all. I always felt Tony should have been more grateful that the only male I invited into our marital bed in his absence was an overweight redhead with no testicles.
Thus, bed battles notwithstanding, we settled down to be a fairly happy threesome for a time.
Quite early in our marriage, an opportunity arose at work. An internal advertisement came around on email from the marketing department. They were advertising for an Associate Product Manager for Lo-prez, the blood pressure medicine I had been overseeing the trial for; it was just about to go on the Australian market. I read the advertisement over several times, nowhere did it say that any experience in sales was required. I fished out my CV and called up a couple of the cardiologists I’d developed a rapport with to ask them to act as referees. I’d never hid my marketing ambitions from my colleagues in the clinical research department, and they were happy to support my application. Obviously someone must have been impressed because I got notice that I’d been granted an interview.
I arrived for the interview in my best suit but with very low expectations, as it’s customary that only those with sales experience are handed this sort of job. I therefore thought I had nothing to lose and was completely relaxed throughout. I don’t know what it was that swung the interview panel - my attitude, my excellent university grades, or my glowing references - but I was blown away later to find out I was the successful applicant. I would have cracked a champagne bottle with Tony that night, but he was away as usual and I had to be content with breaking the news to him by phone. My appointment caused some consternation, and not a little resentment, amongst a few of the more ambitious members of the sales force, but I didn’t care as I finally had my foothold into marketing.
I was fortunate that my immediate superior, Edward, was very benevolent and prepared to show me the ropes. He was a friendly looking, curly-haired fellow in his mid-thirties, who was carrying a few excess kilos. I could always imagine him playing the perfect Santa Claus thirty years hence. His wife also seemed to be permanently pregnant - they had produced three gorgeous, pink-faced little girls before Edward burst into my office one day to announce proudly that they were finally expecting a boy.
One of the first things I was required to do was go out on the road with a few of the sales representatives to see pharmaceutical sales in action. What a thankless task they perform. Essentially a pharmaceutical sales rep does