It's for a gig as a freelance marketing writer for an “undisclosed” company. Now this assessment was pretty involved and required me to complete several exercises with both short and long form responses. It was also clear that I would have to conduct research and do some serious strategizing before formulating my answers. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
A local hair salon wants to run Facebook ads for the Christmas holiday season. They're offering 10% off gift cards that can be used at the salon. Their goal is to retarget potential customers who have visited their website. Their target audience is women ages 18-65 years old. What is your recommended ad copy for their remarketing campaign?
See what I mean?... Serious stuff.
So I get all the way through the assessment to the final exercise and I get this weird curve ball thrown at me that I'm not even sure is for real – maybe it's just a joke or maybe they're trying to see how I would handle an assignment for something way out-of-the-box?... Anyway, this was it:
We're aliens from another planet who have just landed on earth. We understand the English language, but many human activities and normal routines are foreign to us. We also consume food the way butterflies do, so we don't have teeth. To the best of your ability, please help us understand the average human's routine for brushing one's teeth.
I was both annoyed and amused that they asked for this – so much so that I absolutely could not resist having some fun and giving it back to this company in spades. So check it out below -- my response to how I would explain to an alien how humans brush their teeth:
Greetings aliens. How ya doing? Thanks for coming all the way across the galaxy for this.
Today I'm going to explain to you how to brush your teeth. Teeth, by the way, are these things we humans have in our mouths that cut, mash and pulverize the food we consume before we ingest it. It's important to remember that if we don't brush our teeth, they will decay, rot and fall out -- and then we'd have no way to eat corn on the cob, Tootsie Rolls or Wendy's Baconators -- so you can see why this is so critical. Okay, here we go!
First, we move to an area of the home we call the "bathroom sink." We then turn a handle to start a flow of running water. Hey, did I mention that before we enter the bathroom we should really knock first because someone else could be in there giving themselves a bikini wax or a coffee enema or God knows what.
So to brush our teeth, we begin by squirting this gel-like substance (called "toothpaste") out of this tube onto this short stick with bristles on the end that we call a "toothbrush." We apply enough gel to cover the bristles and then rub the brush back and forth, and up and down on our teeth. (We're told by our experts here on earth to use a circular motion when we do this but trust me, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.)
Now periodically, as we are brushing, liquid will build up in our mouths until it's full. When that happens we go ahead and spit out the liquid/toothpaste build up. We try to make sure that it goes in the sink and down the drain because if it doesn't and the mess just lies there, our wives will yell at us.
Next, we add more toothpaste and repeat the brushing process. The experts here on earth (a sadistic group of men and women we call "dentists") say you should brush for about two minutes. That's really just kind of a loose rule though because sometimes you're running late for work or you just want to brush really quickly because you had Italian for dinner and you want to get that garlic taste out of your mouth so you make out with your girlfriend.
Okay, almost done. After we've completed the brushing (and spitting) it's time to "rinse." So what we do is we take our hand and we cup it so we can catch some of the running water in it. By the way, I forgot to mention that the water should ALWAYS be running. Sure, we could turn the faucet handle and only run the water when we need to -- but we're just stupid, lazy humans and destroying our planet by wasting all that water is a lot easier.
We then slurp the cupped handful of water into our mouths and swish it around for a few seconds. Now we spit the liquid out. (Yes, more spitting. Aren't we humans disgusting?) Then we look in the mirror and admire the great job we did by smiling at ourselves. (Maybe even give ourselves a sexy wink because dammit, we deserve it!)
Lastly, we always leave the toothbrush on the sink and NOT in the toothbrush holder because moving it that extra 12 inches is just way too much work.
And that's how humans brush their teeth! Tomorrow will be your next lesson... "How to take a dump."
No bullshit, this is what I replied with and sent back.
As I read it back now, it reminds me of this scene in Sleeper, where Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) comes out of a cryogenic freeze in the year 2173 and is asked by scientists to identify the people in a series of photographs from the 20th century. Miles' deadpan explanations are hilarious as he gives his take on everyone from Joseph Stalin to Bela Lugosi.
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