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I remembered this folder and dug it out. I had a sense that back then I’d been a passionate, engaged, optimistic correspondent—a young freedom fighter, ready to bring forth change on a worldwide level. What I didn’t understand was that I’d been a super pest, bordering on mildly autistic, with the frightening self-confidence of a heavily medicated Charlie Sheen. (‘I am on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it once you will die, your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.’)
    15.7.1998
    Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing with regards to a recent White Wings commercial involving two little girls sitting on a bench at school comparing play lunches.
    The original commercial involved one rather limp blonde child singing the praises of her saccharine mother’s view towards cake products (‘My mother says this . . . my mother thinks that . . .’ etc), while our feisty heroine in pigtails rolls her eyes before delivering the knock-out punchline . . . ‘So does mine— but she’s got a life.’ . . .
    Yes, this is really what it looks like at first glance: a letter to White Wings about one of their television advertisements. If you presumed these sorts of letters were written by tremblingly furious pensioners who only paused their lengthy diatribes to spoon a modest amount of cat food into their spit-flecked mouth, think again.
    . . .This was such a great commercial, filled with sassiness and attitude.Yet the company recently seems to have chickened out, cutting the final line, leaving the two little saps agreeing smilingly as they tuck into their White Wings cakes . . .
    Cue incandescent rage.
    . . . Why have you done this? You have taken all the life out of your advertisement with one cut. Whoever the big cheese with cold feet is, they should have their head examined . . .
    Use of the phrases ‘big cheese’ and ‘cold feet’ in such close succession would indicate this letter was clearly written with toothpick in mouth whilst waiting for Big Moe and the boys to do a little bada bing with some violin cases or whatever it was gangsters from 1950s cinema got up to in their spare time when they weren’t slapping their ladyfriends meatily on the backside. If the Pettingill family is ever looking for a new matriarch they need search no further.
    I mean, really .
    Disappointedly,
    Marieke Hardy
    â€˜I mean, really.’ I was twenty-two years old in 1998 and already sounding like the sort of stitched-up biddy who distrusts the coloureds ‘because they hum to themselves while they sew’. Nothing like rounding off the argument with a motherly tut to really make a large corporation sit up and take notice.
    Interestingly enough, far from writing me off as a complete nutjob who pays a worrying amount of attention to the intricacies of their television commercials, some poor soul at Uncle Tobys sat down and patiently dictated a response.
    Dear Ms Hardy,
Thank you for contacting us in regard to one of our products . . .
    Now I’m no Nancy Drew, but I strongly suspect that the consumer relations department may have been phoning this one in. ‘One of our products’?? IT WAS THE WHITE WINGS CAKE COMMERCIAL AND YOU AND I BOTH KNOW IT UNCLE TOBY IF INDEED YOU ARE MY REAL UNCLE.
    . . . Uncle Tobys is a company that takes pride in the quality of our products and services and appreciate the time you have taken to contact us . . .
    . . . ‘particularly since the rest of your busy day must be filled with pressing appointments for biting the heads off pigeons at Flinders Street Station and standing outside the window of random restaurants drooling onto the glass and shrieking MISTER DONUT ATE MY SOUL at startled diners.’
    . . . and the interest you have taken in our company’s products.
    It is only feedback from consumers that enables us to measure the ongoing and