Wednesday, January 14, 2004
What a Relief: the World’s Easiest Instructions and Best Name Ever
First, the receipt reads, “I’m RELIEF PHARMACIST. I’m here to serve you with our ‘7 Service Basics.’” Well howdy, Relief, that’s an embarassing handle you’ve got there but thanks for ringing me up. And about those seven basics, I noticed 1 through 4, and 6, but both 5 and - my personal favorite - 7 were notably absent. To say I’m disappointed would be a tragic understatement. Nobody does good 7 anymore, not like when I was coming of age. And between you and me, Relief, despite that your name tag tells me you’re an intern from Heald College next door, I bet you know your way around a bit more service than the mere “basics.” Let’s stretch our limitations, shall we?
But the receipt wasn’t what really entertained me.
I had made two purchases - one refilled prescription and one household item. Now there’s nothing funny about nasal steroids, they have changed my life and enhanced my prowess in such profound ways I could not possibly malign them. Plus they’re just not funny, once you’ve exhausted the obvious “does it make your nose pick fights?” and “RoboSnot” jokes. But I also got another item. I won’t identify it, so you can figure out what it is for yourselves. But what I particularly like about it is the accompanying text, printed on the back of the cardboard of the blisterpack. If you read between the lines, you might be able to identify this mysterious object by the instructions. I present it as a masterpiece, in my eyes, of words that actually subtract information from the universe.
25 ft MODULAR LINE CORD
PRODUCT USAGE:
Connects telephone device to modular wall outlet.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Disconnect existing line cord from telephone device and wall jack.
2. Insert one end of modular line cord into wall jack.
3. Insert other end of modular line cord into phone device jack.
These instructions are either hopelessly overwritten (in case you already know what words like “phone device jack” and “outlet” mean), or they’re destined to be misunderstood by someone who has no business dealing with electricity. If you don’t know to “unplug” before you “plug in the new one”, at least we can take comfort that your particular tributary of the gene pool will evaporate soon enough. Till then, put down the wires. Somebody will get hurt. Then again, it’s probably just you, so have at it, Sparky.
I thought it was literally impossible to say anything any more obvious than these instructions. And I guess it is, but you can reach the same heady heights time and again if you’re really good at your work, and if your work is to depict the deadened soul in words. So the piece of pasteboard continues:
White 25’ Modular Line Cord
(item # and bar code)
Distributed by East-West Distribution and Manufacturing Company
Deerfield IL (zip) // Made in China
The thing I really like here, apart from how they repeat the name of the item (oh there I gave it away) is the thought process that obviously went into that corporate name. As Arthur Andersen is Adjulent now, and US Airways is USAir, and New Coke is now Coke with Irony, at some point four cornfed distribution executives from Deerfield, probably still wearing camoflage and waders and carrying deer rifles, met with four chinese manufacturing executives, who undoubtedly were in traditional costumes from Madam Butterfly or one of those noisy pantomime dragon things. I assume they met at the midpoint between their respective headquarters, such as on a floating boardroom somewhere in the Arctic Ocean. Or maybe on a satellite in global orbit, to symbolize the interdependence of mankind in light of the fragile isolation of our beautiful planet. But anyway, they are meeting, for the first time. Jitters that make a first date feel like a longstanding marriage electrify the air. Will they like us? Can we work together? Do I look fat in these waders? The cultural divide yawns between them, defying them to find their common purpose, to begin the teambuilding that is the foundation for all meaningful collaborations. Two basketball-loving cultures, both laying waste to their respective wildlands with reckless abandon as if in competition with each other, both fond of music, sunsets, and hummel figurines, yet so different too: chaw vs incense; the Great Mall vs the Great Wall; eating hot dogs vs just eating dogs.... how could they hope to join hands across the chasm and learn to love their strange but earnest foreign brothers, East and West - the twain, if you will - meeting? Finally, it was a name that brought them together. A name that gives them both the dignity of autonomy, and the strength of partnership: “East-West Distribution and Manufacturing.” And see how they got symmetry in priority - east (China) precedes west (Illinois), but then distribution (Illinois) precedes manufacturing (China). They both get to be first. That’s democracy. And that’s what China is all about, isn’t it? And maybe, someday, maybe even Deerfield, too. Yes, even Deerfield.
