Monday, April 24, 2006

Free Cookies! from The Medleh Group

I don't know if this is common in other professions, but working in a law office generally permits you to collect a certain amount of low-rent swag (swag in the Oscar-presenter gift bag sense, not goods acquired illegally). Since I first started practicing law, I have periodically been assailed by pens, clocks, popcorn, candy, baked goods, fruit, folders, a water bottle, and probably other items that I no longer recall. The businesses providing these goods, not surprisingly, have functions related to litigation: deposition services companies, document wranglers, graphic arts centers, and even services that will track your appeal's schedule in addition to binding and copying your briefs. I have never met anybody who actually hired one of these businesses based on the strength of their logo-emblazoned candy jars, but at least it gave me a place to store my pens.

Today, the familiar pattern repeated itself. There I was, sitting at my desk, when our HR lady came in and gave me a little white box. It was addressed TO: me, FROM: some guy I had never heard of. Somebody had scrawled my firm's initials in the upper-left-hand-corner. The logo on the box top read: "The Medleh Group: We're here to serve you" and listed locations in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and New York.

If you live in California -- you're out of luck, fool! Inside the box -- two cookies!

I hope you enjoy your fish tacos and Jamba Juice, California, because I was living large with my free cookies. The first one was oatmeal raisin. It was soft, as an oatmeal raisin cookie should be, with just a hint of cinnamon underneath the oaty bounty. Happily, the chewiness really let me taste the sweetness of the raisins, which did not disappoint. Unlike the raisins you sometimes get in petrified, store-bought cookies, these were one with the cookie and blended in with their surroundings like so many highly-trained secret agents.

The second cookie was your standard-issue peanut butter. It was soft though, fittingly, not so soft as the oatmeal raisin. It was more than acceptable, and I could definitely buy it as a bake sale offering from a harried suburban mom with a part time job. It was not, however, the transporting experience of its oatmeal raisin neighbor. I can only suggest, Medleh Group, that in future giveaways, you put the oatmeal raisin cookie on the bottom of the box, so that it is the last thing the recipient remembers.

Oftentimes, once the swag has been delivered, the sender calls each recipient later in the day to pitch his or her services. Sure enough, a couple of hours after I downed the cookies, I got a call from the guy on the FROM line, asking to come in and meet with me about his document services. I explained that there probably wasn't much I could do for him at the present time, but he persisted. So, sucker that I am, I agreed to give him five minutes next week. Maybe he'll bring brochures or something that I can peruse the next time I need some document wrangling. Anyway, the oatmeal raisin cookie was so good, I felt sort of guilty not giving him a chance to say his piece.

Damn, that was a good cookie. If the Medleh Group ever sends you such a gift, I highly recommend consuming it. But if you're counting calories, just go for the oatmeal raisin and give the peanut butter to your secretary or some other worthy person.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another explosive expose by Tha A-bomb! Keep them coming!!!

Thanks to you, now there are officially 2 things from the Eastern America that I pine for in the middle of the dark temperate night. ;)

Anonymous said...

I also wanted to comment that I love the phrase "low-rent swag."

That is all.

Anonymous said...

ME WANT COOKIE! ME WANT COOKI*URP*.

Love-

Cookie Monster

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm sooooooo fas-eee-shus.

Love,

Cookie Monster