L.A. STORIES : A Card, a Call, and Christmas Cheer

The other day I grabbed the expected slew of Christmas cards out of my mailbox,and noticed one with a strange name, let’s call him “Mal Mallard,” in the return address corner.

“Mal Mallard?” I muttered. “Do I know a Mal Mallard? Hmmm. A forgotten chum? More evidence of incipient Alzheimer’s?”

I opened the envelope to find a card with a few kids and a dog dancing maniacally around an idiot snowman, and inside, the greeting: “May All Your Holiday Wishes Come True.” It was signed “Mal Mallard”--right above the imperious emblem of Mal Mallard’s leviathan corporation, BDPC (Big Damn Phone Company).

Aiiiieeee. Mal had tricked me! I didn’t even know him. I’d never so much as shaken his hand at a party. It was a corporate plot.

And Mal was not content to send a mere greeting. Enclosed was a check for $40 and a letter saying I could own that $40 if I simply switched my long-distance service to BDPC. This letter was signed by Mal, shamelessly identified as “Manager, BDPC Long Distance Service.”

Imagine. It was bad enough that I had been deceived into opening a card from BDPC, but dangling $40 in front of a free-lance writer in mid-December is cruel and inhuman punishment. The experience filled me with the Christmas spirit--which I would define as a kind of sick giddiness that comes from being forced to participate in a hollow commercial enterprise. May all your holiday wishes come true, indeed. I wished Mal a very shiny nose, like Rudolph’s.

Then the truer, more historical spirit of Christmas seized me. I had an idea. Why, I would return Mal’s holiday wishes. I would reach out and touch him, using his corporation’s own exalted tool!

But wait--Mal’s signature seemed machine-made. Maybe he was no more real than Santa Claus--a Christmas marketing elf who enters through the mailbox. I phoned BDPC customer service.

“Let me talk to Mal Mallard,” I said. “I want to wish him a Merry Christmas.”

“You can’t speak to him” a woman said. “We answer phones for him.”

“Look. Mal wrote to me, and I want to wish him a damned Merry Christmas,” I said. “Put me through.”

The woman became rather nervous, and disconnected me. I called back. A gentleman offered to put me in touch with corporate HQ for information about Mal’s whereabouts.

“Thanks,” I said. “Now tell me--is Mal Mallard real?”

The man’s tone remained unchanged--robotic, unreal.

“Sir, I am only authorized to provide certain information.”

“Is Mal Mallard real?” I demanded.

“Sir, I am only authorized to provide certain information.”

“Oh my God,” I said, “They’ve got you too scared to answer! Did Mal do this to you?”

“Sir, I am only . . .”

For the next couple of hours, I navigated an electronic labyrinth of bureaucracy, leaving messages for many people, in New Jersey, New York and Los Angeles. I spent great swaths of time on hold, listening to Christmas carols, “Please continue to hold” recordings, and ads for services that promised to “make the special people in your life feel closer.” (Perish the thought.) Finally, I wound up talking to a Cathy in Basking Ridge, N.J. She giggled when I told her I was trying to track down Mal Mallard.

“I suspect he doesn’t exist,” I said. “Like flying reindeer.”

“I suspect you have that right.” Cathy said with a laugh. And then--

“Wait!” she said. “I’ve got him right in the book. Mal Mallard the second .”

In a few minutes, I had Mal Mallard II on the line. He was home for the day, sick as a dog with a chest cold.

“Mal,” I said, “How the hell are you?”

“Outside of a cold,” he gasped, “not bad.”

“I thank you for the Christmas card.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I guess we’ve met before.”

There was a long silence, followed by Mal’s suddenly wary tone:

“In what way, sir?”

Because he sounded slightly fearful, I explained the purpose of my call.

I should mention here that Mal is a master of public relations-speak. No, a wizard. No no, a god. Ask a meek question such as “Don’t you think this card and letter were impersonal?” and Mal will talk--perhaps till doomsday--about how maybe he should “look at it and figure out how to make it better . . .”

His language is beige. It is just crammed with terms like “feedback,” “numbers-oriented” and phrases such as “you really have to assess” and “I consider that significant” and “you have to go back and look so we can go forward” and “take a closer look in order to” and “give ourselves a little boot in the rear.”

What’s more, Mal talks about as fast as that infomercial memory expert guy who can recite the entire membership of the New York Stock Exchange. You listen to Mal’s parade of relentlessly optimistic, bland, humble, multisyllabic PR language delivered in that rapid-fire, gentle monotone for more than a minute or two, and your brain turns into hot, steaming oatmeal. Your tongue becomes a flopping fish. Your prepared questions start square-dancing with each other. You are mesmerized! I mean, this guy is good. I had to be blunt:

“I felt tricked and deceived by your card, Mal. You invaded my privacy! You seem like a nice guy trying to do your job well, but I didn’t recognize your name, and then I realized, ‘Oh, my God, it’s BDPC trying to pick my pocket during the holiday season.’ Frankly, I was disgusted.”

“I think it’s great,” Mal said.

“What? You think it’s great that I was disgusted?”

“No,” he said, his voice smooth with sincerity, “that you were able to tell me that!” ( Aiiiieeee. ) “This is what we need to do if we are going to be a long-distance company of choice for people, we have to understand their needs and how we need to communicate with them. So with all the feedback we get between now and next December, we’re going to be analyzing all the data and saying, ‘Was this worth it? Did we offend too many people? Should we do it better? Should we not market this time of the year?’ ”

Mal was off again. Away he went. A cloud of computer dust and a hearty, “Hiyo, feedback--away.” If it hadn’t been for his shortness of breath, I don’t think I ever could have interrupted. Even so, I had to be quick.

“You sent about a million of these things out, Mal? I’ll bet most people were disgusted.”

“All the feedback is taken into account,” Mal beiged on, “and we certainly apologize if anyone feels offended or disgusted or feels it’s a slick marketing ploy.” (Oh, no. Never,) Mal continued, in at least 500 words, to explain that the “overwhelming response was positive” and that a lot of elderly folks were happy to receive the BDPC card--how it was the only holiday greeting they’d gotten, and how that made Mal feel great. (His statement ended with: “We take all feedback, positive, negative, whatever, and reassess.”)

“But, Mal,” I said. “That’s almost tragic. It’s so sad!”

“Right,” said Mal, “but for what we’ve done and invested in this, if we’ve touched one person and made them feel better about their life or themselves, then it was certainly worth it. It’s not a--Oh God, how to explain it--it’s not a matter of trying to take advantage. It’s . . .” Etc.!

And then Mal knocked me down with this feather: He actually said that making people feel good is more important than having a campaign make money.

“Mal! You sound like a guy who believes in Santa Claus.”

“Well, I kind of believe in it, myself,” he said, allowing that either “Santa or God or my mother” watches over him.

This was too much. The man had just turned from a slavering corporate Godzilla into something warm and fuzzy, despite my rude inquiries. In the end, I told Mal that I was tearing up his Christmas card, but that he could send me one next year, seeing as we had established an acquaintance.

“Great!” said Mal. “I appreciate that. I really appreciate the feedback, because as I said, we’re taking it all in, and . . .” Etc.!

After I hung up, I realized I hadn’t wished Mal a Merry Christmas, as I had planned.

Oh, well.