Ultimate Ruddy Ruddy

Discussing your job on a blog is a bit of a no-no. Say the wrong thing, and you can find yourself out on the street clutching a banker's box full of your personal effects. But I don't think there's any harm in mentioning that my job involves editing marketing material and that my boss pulled me into his office yesterday to show me something.

"Check this out," he said, handing me a prototype piece of direct mail designed to sell our new product. "We're going to be doing more of this from now on."

And I realized something: With the way his name has been bought and sold to dozens of credulous marketers who never seem to question the existence of such an implausibly named person, it seems almost inevitable that my own company -- a business upon whose premises the very Wall of Ruddy Ruddy itself was once located -- will eventually send junk mail to Ruddy Ruddy.

That might be the ultimate Ruddy Ruddy achievement. I've long talked about how I'd like to see Ruddy Ruddy awarded a credit card, registered to vote, or drafted into the military, but seeing my own company duped into thinking that Ruddy Ruddy is a real person -- well, that's the big one. I could retire on that caper.*

Happily, that hasn't happened yet, and I'll continue to update you on the mail that keeps coming in for Ruddy Ruddy. And I can promise you that you're going to like the next one. My neighbour and Ruddy Buddy Elizabeth (upon whom I have bestowed the nom de Ruddy of "Cootie Hagar") came back to my place with me tonight and ripped open an envelope that recently arrived, and by God, it's a good one. It might be my favorite one ever.

But that's a story for another day. Stay tuned, my Ruddy Buddies.

* Okay, merely receiving mail is too passive to be called a "caper", but you know what I'm saying here.