Now that's called a marketing plan folks. They could have stopped at the free product for a year. But they reached out further. They aligned all the fads from the 90s up against this week's Wal-Mart tab to find the perfect giveaway.

One bold junior ad exec jumped from his seat and said, "karaoke." A little spot of urine tinted his Docker khakis in the exictement. A loud hush fell over the crowd of six in meeting room 14. Vicky from sales raised an eyebrow. "I second the hell out of that motion," quipped Dave. All eyes now fell on Jeanne. "Sure, whatever. Now let's talk about the production problems on the Cub Foods account?"

45 minutes later, the tee-tee stain dried, but "We Are the Champions" played in Brendan's mind the rest of the afternoon. Years later, he would harshly remind Julie, the intern, that he was the one who put the karaoke in the 2006 Snuggle/Karaoke sweepstakes. That he wasn't to be 'trifled with', and that if she wanted to 'trifle with someone, she had better get on the first plane to Trifle-vania. And make it coach.'

Enter today!


Julie became Brendan's boss the next year after a corporate merger. [To be continued…]