Celeste woke up with a slight headache, which immediately made her think that it was not going to be a good day. But she pushed the thought aside and forced herself to find a positive idea. Life was too short to make far reaching judgments based on one particular thing. How did she know the day was going to be a bummer, based on a headache? Someone had told her that if she held her nose and blew air into her brain, gently, like a blowfish, you could stop a headache. Sometimes your brain is just starved for oxygen. She decided to try it, she blew for a few seconds, stopped for a bit, and blew again. Well, what do you know, she thought to herself, it works. This made her feel so good, she started to hum a tune. She took her shower, and chose a lovely royal blue dress to wear. She had her hair styled over the weekend, and it still looked great three days later. Single strand of pearls with matching earrings, and she was set to go. She tried hard to dress the part of a young, aspiring advertising executive. Her meeting with the company that was considering her work for an account, was at 10:00 a.m., she wanted to get there just a little early, not enough to appear anxious, but just politely early.

She arrived in the parking lot with twenty minutes to spare. She found a parking spot, but noticed that the cars on both sides of her car, had hogged more than the necessary space, so the spot was tight for her car, maybe that was the idea, don’t park here, we want all the space. She didn’t get the message, she opened her door to get out and her door hit the car next to her, oh crap, she thought, as she squeezed out of her car, and closed her door, she saw that the car next to hers had a nice little dent in its door on the passenger door. The next thing that she realized was that the car was a Mercedes. Dagnabit, why not a Ford or something a little less expensive? Her mother had taught her that honesty was good, so she wrote the car’s owner a note and tucked it under the windshield wiper. It still could be a good day, she thought, what the heck. She walked quickly to the front doors of the office building, went through them, and took the elevator to the eighth floor.

From there she walked down the hall to a glassed door office and opened the door. Madison Products, Incorporated was a high grossing company, based on her research and she hope to land this advertising account for her boss. She sat down with her portfolio beside her, and started to thumb through a magazine. Soon she thought, these pages would have her ads on them. Positive thoughts, believe in yourself, she kept thinking. Hard to do when your heart was beating like a drum, it’s not like you have not done this before, yes but not with these kind of numbers, this was a possible quarter million dollar account. She had done her best, her presentation to her colleagues was met with rave reviews. She now had to sell it to the client, quite a different story, they had to pay for it and her ads had to sell their companies product better than her competitors

A gentleman dressed in a deep navy blue suit walked over to her, and introduced himself, as the Vice-President of Marketing, there were so many Vice-Presidents, and he was not one she had met before. But he was cordial, and made her feel at ease. She walked beside him into a very large conference room. There were about twelve people or so in the room. They provided a projector and screen, and she had someone dim the lights and the show was on. When she came into the room she was introduced to all, but she was to busy thinking about how to effectively give her presentation, to win over enough of those present to be in the running for the final choice. She knew she could do it, and she went at it with gusto, she spoke authoritatively, espousing their product, as if it were created by her, not overly praising it, but enough to make you know that you wanted to try it as soon as possible.

She could see that they were paying attention and that they were fully interested, she was proud of herself. One of the gentleman kept asking questions, out of a serious need to know, not to harass, so she tried to answer him, and she realized that the questions he was asking her, gave a fuller version of her campaign. She was happy that he was asking the questions, in the end. She finished the presentation, and answered any final questions any of them had for her. She left them with hard copies and script. They would be in touch in a few weeks, the head of marketing told her. She so wanted to ask how many other firms were being considered, but that would be bad form, so she kept the question to herself. The presentation took about two hours, she saw a ladies bathroom sign and went through the door, thinking she really wanted a drink, but that would have to wait. She thought to herself, you probably should have had a drink prior to your presentation. She had done a great job, everything was clear and concise, it was a waiting game now.

She left the building with a sense of victory, as she walked out of the building, she saw what looked like a familiar face, standing beside the Mercedes that she had banged up, before entering the building. She walked over to him and he was just putting two and two together after reading her name and number on the note. When he looked up and saw her coming there was a big smile on his face, he had not even looked at the door yet, and she could tell from the smile and the body language, that the dent in his door was not going to be a problem. It was the guy who had been  asking her all of the questions on her presentation. All of a sudden, she wasn’t concerned about getting the account anymore, it was kind of clear that she had won something else. Two weeks later after three dates, she was called into her boss’ office and told that she had landed the Madison account, for the company. She and her new guy took the time to celebrate over a romantic dinner with wine, and the sound of violins.