prepaidlegal I’d left my house—happy day!—to hit Book Soup for my friend Nick Schou’s reading of his newest book, Orange Sunshine. It’s about the hippies in Laguna Canyon—the Brotherhood of Eternal Love—who became, in all their Afghan-hash-smuggling awesomeness (and unawesomeness) the impetus for the creation of the DEA. It’s wonderful, and you should buy it, and I was early (I am always 45 minutes early, unless it’s to work) and so I walked up the block to Red Rocks to have a $4 happy hour glass of rum.

There, some nice young people graciously allowed me to take the open seat at their table on the patio, and they were so friendly! So outgoing and conversatey! And what did I do for work? I have been unemployed for a year and a half. They high-fived me. Nice kids!

So they were all in marketing, and as a creative who used to work in newspapers, maybe I’d like to come to one of their loose weekly meetings! Oh my God, they had a super blast all the time! Marketing! Whoo!

A marketing meeting seemed like an excellent way to get out of the house, something I could plan a whole week ahead, guaranteeing at least one day in seven where I shaved my legs and washed my hair. I sort of imagined they were street leafleters, or ridiculous club promoters, but it was worth finding out. Not leaving the house is hell on your hygiene.

But then Nathan started calling—more than once—to confirm that I was going to show, and I began to get the overwhelming feeling young Nathan had a quota to meet, and that mama was going to have to strap on the handy psychological exoskeleton that kept her from being a squishy “grape.” I don’t mind a sales pitch, but I should at least get a trip to Catalina in return.

And so I showed to the restaurant in Santa Monica where the upstairs was given over to their presentation, and Nathan greeted me, and still didn’t want to tell me just what their little jig was. I would see it all so soon! Everyone was 28, tanned and blue-eyed and feral underneath their grown-up suits. A skinny-necked, big-eared boy took to the front of the long table, the screen behind him showing a waving American flag and the legend “Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc.”

Oh sweet Jesus.

 Around the table, my fellow lucky inductees comprised an actor, an actress, an RN, one person in the coffee business (whether as owner or barista was left unspoke), and then, standing at the back, the better to interject loud bellowing “Yeah!”s and “Wow!”s and fist-pumps and slow-claps, were far too many “writers and entrepreneurs” to be statistically viable. You are not “writers and entrepreneurs”! You sell Pre-Paid Legal Services!

The whole thing was as terrible as I’d expected, except it was far more terrible than I’d expected, because even though I’d already resigned myself after Nathan’s multiple calls to the idea it was probably going to be multi-level marketing, I didn’t know I’d have to pay them $249 to sell their shit. (But today only—deal of the century!—reduced to just $72!)

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