Sleepwalk With Me_ And Other Painfully True Stories - Mike Birbiglia [34]
But sometimes I was the idiot.
At one point I was at a focus group for Sam Adams beer, looking at and offering critiques for some new television ads. The ads were fine, and the moderator asked us what we thought of the beer, the Sam Adams brand, and Sam Adams the historical figure. And the young man on my left started talking about his impression of Sam Adams as an American patriot and Revolutionary War hero. And I have no idea why, but I tried to correct him. I jumped in and pointed out that Sam Adams wasn’t a patriot or a revolutionary, he was just a guy who made beer, a brewer. Maybe I was trying to show off for the people behind the glass. I knew they were behind there, mocking his ignorance, and I suppose by jumping in I thought I could differentiate myself, you know, pile on the dumb guy. I had to let those people know I was not with this guy. I was my own man, a man with cookie crumbs stuck in my eyebrows. I have no idea what I was thinking. I found out later that Sam Adams was the cousin of John Adams and is generally considered one of the foremost leaders of the American Revolution. The point is, they gave me fifty dollars.
If I could do these every week, I thought, I’ll be set. I’ll be the king of fifty-dollar bills in envelopes! When someone asks me to pay for a check at a restaurant, I’ll just ask, “How many fifty-dollar bills is that?” And then I’ll pull out one of my fifty-dollar bill envelopes, and unleash one of my crisp cincuentas. But I had a hard time qualifying for focus groups every week. Sometimes I wouldn’t fit the demographic they were searching for, so I learned to say whatever it took to qualify. Instead of truthful answers like, “No, I don’t drive a Mitsubishi,” “No, I don’t frost the tips of my hair,” and, “No, I don’t supervise an office of ten or more employees,” I opted for the “correct” answers, like “I drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse,” “I always frost my tips,” and “Of course, I manage our entire sales force on the Eastern seaboard.” Oh, and I also said I love NASCAR. That was probably the biggest stretch.
CALLER:
Mike, how many times a week would you say that you read NASCAR magazines? Zero to two, three to five, or six to seven days?
ME:
Oh, definitely six to seven days a week, definitely.
CALLER:
Great. And how many times a week do you email your friends about NASCAR races: zero to four, five to twelve, or, more than twelve times per week?
ME:
More than twelve.
The ad agencies and their clients try to cover their asses and weed out the fakers. They can’t have these focus groups be total catastrophes, so they try to nail you with the last question. Fortunately, the caller is paid by how quickly she can fill up these focus groups, so she’s on your side.
CALLER:
And finally, could you name your three favorite NASCAR drivers?
And you’d think, for a guy who reads NASCAR magazines six or seven days a week and emails his friends constantly about their progress and outcomes, this wouldn’t be too difficult a question, but somehow, I still struggled.
ME:
Sure, sure . . . ok, hmmm . . . is there a Dale?
CALLER:
Dale Earnhardt Jr?
ME:
Yes, him. And that guy Ricky, with the glasses and the hat, he drives really fast.
CALLER:
You mean Ricky Rudd?
ME:
Yes, Ricky Rudd, and of course, everyone’s favorite, Dick Trickle. He’s my third favorite.
CALLER:
(pause) Uh, he retired a long time ago. Can we just say Jeff Gordon?
ME:
Oh yes, I love him too. Jeff is great. Super fast racer.
So I qualified. And by this point in the call, I figured out that the focus group is going to be about some sort of NASCAR-themed technology, probably a website. So I thought, Oh, I’ll hang back in this focus group, and just focus on eating cookies. But when I arrived for the group,