Maria Meets Monica, Part 1

Article 2119 of alt.sex.fetish.smoking:
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Subject: Maria meets Monica Part 1 of 3 (long)
Date: 17 Aug 1995 21:12:58 -0400
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This is Part 1 of 3 of Maria meets Monica:

John Champaico seemed to thrive in his new position as Regional Sales
Manager. He now had a 32nd floor corner office, at the Dynatech World
Headquarters building. Prominently displayed on his desk he kept a
picture of Maria and Liz, sharing a Keriokee microphone, taken that
memorable night at the Stonehearth Inn. Looking closely, her cigarette
case and ash tray are barely visible in the lower right hand corner of
the photo, a reminder to John of Maria's belated metamorphosis that
evening.  Maria was doing nicely in her own right, having been placed
on the corporate payroll as "Creative Consultant", a position created
by Brock at Liz's incessant urging, she now drew a nice monthly
retainer and had long since quit her mundane job at the attorney's
office. She was not without credential, however, as she had studied
drama at NYU and received a BA degree in Journalism.  John was pleased
that Maria had cultivated a "new" circle of friends, mostly Liz's
friends actually, whom she entertained at weekly bridge parties and an
occasional pool party at their new beach front home. All were upper
crust, well healed, and educated; and all smokers of course. It was in
this capacity, as "Creative Consultant", that Maria had flourished and
begun to make her mark, having dumbfounded the "so called" experts on
Madison Avenue with her "Real Life" brand of commercials. The latest
challenge was to promote Dente'blancha (White Teeth), a product
developed by Dynatech's pharmaceutical division which promised to
whiten teeth tarnished from tea, coffee, or nicotine. Liz and Maria
reviewed the endless video tapes submitted by  models' agents until
one, imparticular, stuck out. It was Becky DuBois's tape.  All of the
tapes before contained beautiful, well proportioned, young ladies,
smiling fakely, telling about themselves and how they would like to
"Save the Spotted Owls" or the "Whales", or the "Fly covered Children
of Ethiopia"... Maria took a long, hard drag, from her cigarette and
asked Liz dryly, as she exhaled, "do you know even one of these
endangered Whales, I mean personally? Have you ever even seen one of
these Spotted Owls? America hasn't either, that's my point!
'Politically Correct' is a has been, a clich. No one gives a $#@^$
about those mysterious Owls anymore. I know I don't"  Becky's tape,
having a less professional polish, stood out mostly because of  the
additional two minutes which recorded after Becky thought the shoot was
done. She impatiently asked the camera man "how'd I do this time,
Clyde?" as she commented under breath "..and what's a Spotted Owl
anyway?".  The next seen, appearing rotated 180 degrees, as the camera
man had put the camcorder down at this point, shows Monica, Becky's
mom, telling her daughter that she had done really great, as she kindly
offered her a cigarette and then nervously lit one for herself. Monica
took a long drag from her Salem 100 and told Liz, as she exhaled a
long, bluish stream of smoke, "THIS is the girl I want representing
Dente'blancha! Just look at that; "Real Life"; and after the shoot, her
mom offering her a cigarette. We've got to get these two in here right
away, they're "Real Life" material if I ever saw it. Maybe her mom
could appear in the spot too, you know, a kind of 'Mother Knows Best'
piece, offering her teen daughter a tube of Dente'blancha to whiten up
those 'cigarette stained' teeth!". Liz nodded, respecting Maria's past
intuitions, and sternly ordered the Administrative Assistant to pull
the file on 'Maria and Becky DuBois'  and for her to make the necessary
airline reservations and whatever else arrangements to get them to New
York for a shoot. Monica crushed out her cigarette confidently, blowing
a long stream of bluish smoke. Then, lighting up another one, telling
Liz, "trust me on this one, this is the Real Thing.". Liz, taking a
long, deep drag from her Benson & Hedges replied back, "Do you think
America is really ready for a 15 year old and her 'has been' mom
smoking on national TV hawking some kind of tooth whitener creme?".
Maria smiled knowingly and replied "I think America has been ready for
a long time. You know the anti-smoking sentiment has swung full circle
now. I think this spot will rejuvenate the pro-smoking feelings we
shared as a nation a couple of decades ago, who knows...". Maria
continued "..maybe Becky and Monica just might be the catalysts
everyone's been waiting for!". Liz nodded sternly at the Administrative
Assistant to make the arrangements. Whatever the consequences, the
DuBois's and the Champaico's would soon become intertwined in the high
stakes word of promotion and advertising.  (Part 2 of 3 coming soon)

[Note: this posting has been reformatted]

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