Meredith Haggerty

— 33 posts

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Jobs I’d Like to Have That Do Not Exist: Snack Sommelier

2012/10/11

What’s the ultimate in luxury assistance these days? The starlets of Hollywood have made it clear that chauffeurs are unnecessary (just get a driver, Amanda), the Personal Umbrella Handler is passe, the Human Footstool is a human rights violation. These days, I’m the hottest thing going: I’m Wilma Arrington, Snack Sommelier.

Now, you might be munching on a bag of sour cream and onion chips and thinking to yourself, “I can do that job.” Sure, it sounds so simple, designing the perfect snack for every occasion, but I’ve dedicated my career to the subtleties of the form. Most celebrities won’t even settle down for a football game or a Real Housewives marathon without consulting me. I studied at Le Cordon Bleu Petite. I spent a decade in the Trader Joe’s test kitchen working under Joe himself — combining chocolate with pita chips, peanut butter with cinnamon cookies, pretzels with Nutella and strawberries. I’ve worked in Vegas Luxury Suites and NBA Skyboxes, creating snacksations for everyone from Matthew McConaughey to Woody Harrelson to Willie Nelson to Rush Limbaugh. Now, there is a man who loves his snacks (he favors savory!).

I am recognized among the top in my field, and the opportunities have been endless…
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Jobs I’d Like to Have That Do Not Exist: Senior Copywriter, Florida State Lottery

2012/10/08

You might be familiar with my work: 3, 8, 19, 33, 48, 79. Okay, that’s a little obscure. 2, 4, 44, 45, 68, 82 — with a bonus of 14! That one’s a classic, in some households. Fine, fine, I’ll just tell you what it says on my business card: John Hansen, Florida State Lottery and Gaming Commission, Senior Copywriter.

Most people think that the Lotto drawing is random, but if you think the state of Florida can risk leaving those balls to a former Hooters waitress in a hand-me-down gown, then you have some grave misconceptions about fate and chance, and probably Keno and horse racing, too.

I started out in scratchers…
383 views, 1 comment

Ask an Evil Genie: I Wish to Rhyme Like Dr. Seuss

2012/05/14

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

Syzygygygy wishes: Oh, proud and mighty evil genie, please grant me my wish! Let me drop mad rhymes like Dr. Seuss.

The Evil Genie replies: Congratulations! You awake tomorrow to find that you rhyme in the classic Seussian style: furiously, compulsively, non-dictionarily, and with only a passing regard for logic.

At first you are excited to meet your friends for brunch, planning rhymes about mancakes and handshakes and branflakes and fan breaks, but when you leave your house and begin to speak to others you find there is a glitch in your system: You are unable to express thoughts that don’t rhyme, and, with the speed of your gift far surpassing the speed of your regular mental and emotional responses, you rarely say anything close to what you mean when another person is speaking to you.

Meeting your friends, you immediately find that your new skill makes for fairly unpredictable conversations… »
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Ask an Evil Genie: I Wish to Be a Fashion Designer’s Lover

2012/05/11

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

Clive wishes: Dear Evil Genie, please, I wish you to help me ensnare/become the dressup doll of a intractable/insane major fashion designer, like you know, Nick Gruber/Jean-Baptiste Giabiconi??

The Evil Genie replies: Dearest Clive, your wish is my command. You are the lover/muse/Ken doll of a major fashion designer. His designs are seen the world over: at fashion week, in magazines, on television. He showers you with expensive gifts and toys and furs and personally-designed denims. The two of you appear entwined on the cover of Interview magazine wearing Kabuki masks. He makes a mold of your body with one hundred dollar bills and then you set the mold on fire because you can, and both of you laugh and laugh. You’re rich, you’re famous to a certain set of people, and you have all the gym time you could ever dream of. You have it all.

Except good taste, I guess? Your mans is none other than Christian Audigier: Ed Hardy entrepreneur, kazillionaire, and President and CEO of Gross Human Train Wrecks. And, as in so many artist/subject relations, your partnership is not one of equality. From the very beginning, things are weird and always on his terms. Christian makes you call him Ed Hardy, but he calls you Ed Hardy, too, which is confusing and icky. He forces you to wear a Von Dutch hat during sex. He smells like flavored vodka and steroid perspiration and Axe body spray, which he sometimes serves as an after-dinner drink. He pushes you into orgies with dangerously guido-ish gentlemen where you’re not sure if you’re going to be fellated or gay-bashed.

At first you find this degradation exciting and sexy, but eventually… »
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Ask an Evil Genie: I Wish to Invent Something that Changes the World

2012/05/09

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

Mintyfresh wishes: Dear Evil Genie, can you make me the inventor of something that will change the world in a totally positive way?

The Evil Genie replies: When your water synthesizer debuts it is not entirely unlike when Norman Bourlang created a new kind of wheat that could feed the third world, or when James Watt’s steam engine kicked off the Industrial Revolution, or even, dare I say, when Zoog, a caveman I just made up, showed the first wheel to his pre-historic brethren. From that fateful day forth, things are going to be easier and better and healthier and happier and the world will be a little smaller, in a cozy, helpful, not-alone-in-the-universe, love-your-fellow-man kind of way. Your simple, affordable, eco-conscious machine does the thing that so many freshman chemistry students suggest: takes a couple of hydrogens and an oxygen, and makes them into safe, clean, crystal-clear water. But with a little genie magic, this actually works. Now, a lack of potable water is a thing of the past.

The synthesizer, which you have named the AquaDrinkabler 5500 (it’s a positive change, but your marketing team is terrible), is used to create not just drinking water, but rivers and lakes where before there were deserts and plains. In the formerly arid areas of the world, trees are blooming, delicious fish are swimming, dying children are living due to lack of lack of water. Matt Damon’s Starbucks Water company shuts right down, and happily, because there is no more need. Water, water, everywhere and all the drops to drink!

After the unveiling and initial excitement, you settle into a figurehead role at AD5500 Inc… »
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Ask an Evil Genie: I Wish to Make Amazing Baklava

2012/05/07

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

Peachy Carnahan wishes: Oh, Evil Genie, Grant me the power to make good baklava. Delicious baklava. Oh yes.

The Evil Genie replies: When you bring your scrumptious, homemade baklava into the office, people are excited.

“What is that?” They ask, cornering you in the kitchen as you set the tray down, “Baklava? Did you make that?” You nod proudly, removing the plastic wrap. “Yeah, I don’t want to brag but, I make good baklava. Delicious baklava. Oh yes.”

“Baklava?” Others ask, coming into the pantry and approaching the plate, “Ooo that’s… what is baklava again?”

“Filo dough with chopped nuts and honey,” you tell them, “Yeah, I make it at home, it’s kind of my specialty. It’s always really good, every single time. Try it!”

Your co-workers lift the baklava to their mouths to taste it. Their eyes light up and they look at you, amazed. “This is great. You made at this? You? At home? You should make this all the time.” You laugh and smile.

“No, seriously,” they say, “Can you make this tomorrow? We have that big meeting and the client is coming in and now that we’ve tasted this, we just don’t know if will go well without your baklava. Seriously, please. Please make it. Please.”

You’re surprised by their intensity, but you agree… »
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Ask an Evil Genie: I Wish I Was a Hologram Like Tupac

2012/05/04

The Evil Genie grants three wishes a week. Leave a wish in the comments!

RightOne wishes: I wish I could be a hologram like Tupac.

The Evil Genie replies: Okay, you’re a hologram, like Tupac. Here’s the thing about being careful what you wish for — sometimes we don’t even understand what we’re wishing for.

Sometimes, when we look at a happy couple and wish that we could have what they have, we don’t know that what they have is a miserable relationship where she feels unfulfilled and leaves drunk voicemails on her ex-boyfriend’s phone and he calls her “mustache” to his friends and tells his parents not to worry about him “settling down” anytime soon. Sometimes, when we think about a dream job we wish that we could have, we don’t know that the position entails such intense commitment, focus, and hard work that all other parts of that Vice President of Accounts or Senior Consultant or Captain of the Air Hockey Team’s life are basically memories, and that the inevitable failure tied to the position has crushed the careers of much more capable employees. Sometimes, when we wish we could be a hologram like Tupac, we don’t already know that Tupac is a hologram.

Read on: To be clear, Tupac Shakur is not dead… »
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Lena Dunham Wishes Away the “Girls” Haters: Ask an Evil Genie, Celebrity Edition

2012/04/30

Lena Dunham wishes: I wish that Girls hadn’t been placed under such intense scrutiny before it had even premiered.

The Evil Genie replies: Boom, done. Your new HBO show, titled Specific Young White Women, premieres to very little fanfare. The internet fails to throw up on itself and then eat its own vomit, not unlike a dog, and you receive a handful of positive reviews from small outfits. You’re a 25-year-old woman with your own TV show! Crazy and amazing.

The week after the pilot airs, you feel fantastic. Your family and friends, all wealthy famous people, are incredibly happy for you. The women who seek out the show, hard as it is to find, really relate to it and think highly of your capabilities as a writer/director/producer/creator/actress. And no one thinks you’re racist or bourgeois or spoiled or disconnected or the product of good fortune! People don’t take any notice of any of you or your show’s flaws at all. #SpecificYoungWhiteWomen doesn’t trend on Twitter.

Feminist blogs discuss HBO’s Sunday nights with a passion, but the talk is all turned to Veep (Would you vote for a woman like Selina Meyer? What if she rocked flowery dresses and Doc Martens like Elaine Benes used to? Think pieces abound). There are no parody videos, or screencapped memes, or diatribes from men, or diatribes from women about the diatribes from men, or parody diatribes written by men about diatribes written by women, or parody diatribes written by women about diatribes written by men about women. There’s nothing.

In the second week, ratings fall. It turns out that your target demographic doesn’t really have HBO, unless they are living and/or staying with their parents… (Read More) »
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Kanye West Wishes Kim Kardashian Didn’t Love Him for the Money: Ask an Evil Genie, Celebrity Edition

2012/04/27

Kanye West wishes: I wish that Kim Kardashian would truly love me… and not for my money.

The Evil Genie replies: Sitting in your darkened home theater, you can’t decide what the bigger travesty is: that they’re playing it again, or that you’re watching it again. As you sit in the actual, literal throne that you purchased and hired a 24-hour security team to watch, you gaze at the screen, the images at once deeply familiar and somehow still wholly unbelievable to you.

E! Entertainment television is rebroadcasting the episode of Kourtney & Kim Take New York that led you to this moment, alone in the blackness. A chyron at the bottom of the screen explains: you and Kim are on a romantic date at New York’s hottest club, Froosh. You see Kim’s beautiful face looking into yours and you watch as the scene, the scene that plays in your nightmares, unfolds. “I love you, Kanye,” the fifty-foot Kim breathes. A giant you replies, “Do you, Kim? But… is Us Weekly right? Is it only for the money?”

“No!” Kim exclaims, “I love you for so many things. The things that make you, you! Your narcissism, your materialism, your arrogance, your defensiveness…”

“What?” At first you were smiling, but your face has fallen. You look like you’re about to explain who deserves an award, or who does and does not care about black people.

“Your connections, your megalomania, your paranoia, your reactionary nature, your singing voice…”

‘But what about my talent?’ you ask Kim. (Read More) »
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Zac Efron Wishes Justin Bieber Was Never Born: Ask an Evil Genie, Celebrity Edition

2012/04/25

This week, the Evil Genie answers celebrity questions. But leave a wish in the comments and next week he might answer!

Zac Efron wishes: I wish that Justin Bieber had never been born.

The Evil Genie replies: Aw, Zef. I get it. After High School Musical, you were the floppiest hair on the block and everyone was obsessed with you. Little girls loved you, little boys wanted to be you, moms wanted to adopt you, dads wanted to toughen you up but begrudgingly admitted you were good at basketball. It was all Zefron, all the time! But when Biebs appeared on the scene, he was younger, his hair was floppier, he was even less threatening. You were usurped. I’m sorry, bro.

So, poof, no more Bieber! Since High School Musical there has been you, you and more you! For years! All you! Usher adopts YOU and you teach one another sweet dance moves. You star in a film called Always Say Always: The Zac Efron Story, and it is a massive hit. Grad School Musical debuts at number one at the box office, you release a line of bang-care products, you go on tour and tweens throw themselves in the streets. There is panic, and outcry, and it’s awesome.

As you start to age, however, the way you have recently, your Disney overlords are angry… »