The Month I Would Be King

My old friend, the empress of design, traveled from New York City to lowly Provo to visit her fam. And she slummed it a little yesterday, stopping by to see us and tour our remodel in progress. Her appearance here is the fodder from which this blog is formed. (Blog form fodder? Say that three times fast.)

Given a choice of king or court jester, I would definitely choose both. Here’s proof. More than a decade ago, I was working for the university’s TV and radio stations as the editor of publications. I built my little digital publishing kingdom as best I could but my ambitions surpassed my stewardship.

Once upon a time, a designer named Jeff and I zoomed way in on a photo (using Photoshop), and added a smiley face to the dot on a man’s tie. When we zoomed back out, you could not see the smiley, only the dot. So off it went to the press, a tiny secret, not visible to the naked eye. What fun we had, and it wasn’t even Easter.

A few years and another student designer later, Jen and I were working on the next month’s program guide. You know how sometimes something starts out as a joke and then  you think, hey it’d be funny if we really ----> insert thing you should not do here <---- . . . ?” Well, we were revising the staff box and I made myself king and she made herself empress. Then we passed the proofs along to our bosses to see if they would catch us in the devious deed. It was in the issue with funny man Bill Cosby on the cover and an article on Danny Kaye, Red Skelton, a few other classic comic greats inside. So we waited to see if they caught our early April Fools joke. Ha ha.

Well, as usual, we were the only ones who actually proofread the text that month. Then on a last minute whim, I decided to let it go to press. I grinned as I checked the press proof. I chuckled as I saw the thousands of printed copies in which I had eternally usurped the throne. Of course, I was still in lower management and the day of reckoning always comes.

A few weeks later, my boss, wielding a copy of the Bill Cosby edition folded over to page 1, burst into my office, pointing at it, pointing at me, red-faced and breathy. After I failed to convince him that we sometimes take ourselves too seriously and offered to give him a better title (supreme ruler, ambassador, despot) in the March issue, I was sent down to the directors office to meet my fate. After enduring another humorless sermon, “You know, that’s a very childish thing to do . . .,” I wandered back up to my office, sat in my office, and smiled for two years.

After that I left that job and went to “a better place,” a place where my supervisors treat me like royalty, giving me support and praise and true appreciation. “Associate editor” will suffice when you work with people like that.

The king is dead. Long live the king.