Every Day is an Easter Egg Hunt

It’s not just a myth anymore!

Kids and Hunts

My preschooler is four. This is commonly known as the age where all parents everywhere become utterly committed, in all parental love, to renouncing all ownership and claim to preschoolers. But we’re sticking it out because we love the little guy, and also because we got an extra $500 from the federal government in our stimulus.

And BOY does this boy love him some candy.  If there is a sweet-tooth DNA gene that gets passed on from father to son, then he most certainly got it.  We’re in the process of finding a quarantine-friendly dentist to extract it however, as my candy tolerance has decreased, and I’d like my gene back, thankyouverymuch.

We all love candy.  We all love searching for candy.  We all love finding candy.  Note that I said “we all love finding candy”; I did not however say “We all love it when our spouses find our own secret stash of candy.”  This is a different occurrence entirely and one that is designed to foster Feelings Of Animosity, along with, in some cases, Urges To Kill.  Such an occurrence happened recently, and now I need an alternate wife who supports my candy cravings and will not steal from me.  I may send this one to the same dentist to extract the candy gene from her as well.

We recently celebrated QuarantEaster (my candy-thieving wife and I) with our preschooler and infant.  The infant doesn’t know what candy is, or that it’s incredibly delicious and fills the soul with utter bliss.  His lack of both of these bits of knowledge fills me with immeasurable joy and reassurance that he won’t be stealing my candy like his thieving mother, by the way: the scoundrel.  But our preschooler could not be more excited.  This small sentient being apparently came pre-programmed to sniff out candy wherever it may lie, and can detect the presence of a Good & Plenty within a half mile.  What I find fascinating is that there are so many Good & Plenty’s that have fallen down into the recesses of our couch, yet he is unable to detect those, possibly because of the thick coat of cat fur that has protectively cocooned it over the years and blocks out any preschooler candy-detection telepathy.

Easter was fun.  Despite being on quarantine, we had a nice Easter egg hunt in our very own backyard, which, with our preschooler at the helm, was completed in two seconds, all 21 eggs told.  As my son pranced around in his adorable Easter outfit purchased by my beautiful thieving wife – who is skilled at stealing candy and not skilled at stealing Easter outfits (WalMart security released her early due to time already served) – I was reminded how every day, for us as marketers, is an Easter egg hunt.

Every day, truthfully, is full of candy to be found. Candy to be celebrated.  Candy to be wrapped in a cocoon of cat hair to be preserved entirely for ourselves.

The Hunt for Red…Licorice

I think what attracts me to candy is the fact that it possesses the incredible, unquenchable ability to sustain my very life.  Not even endless reruns of Friends can do that.  There is something so immensely satisfying about finding candy and knowing that I have it.  There’s eating candy, followed very closely only by dying and going to heaven, which is the same as eating candy. The only thing that comes remotely close to these two is sitting in my easy chair with my feet up and watching Beaches. God bless Bette and Barbara.

In the same way, when we find a client who is amenable to our marketing proposals, it’s a rich thrill that provides a sugar rush - and the best part is that they’re not even cocooned by cat hair, so they’ll be able to honestly give us an unmuted listen.

I took social distancing literally.  I do not like to mow, so I'm social-distancing from my mower.  But hidden out there in the tall green grass of the world – which is by now the height of Everest given that all Lawnmowing Men everywhere who have been on quarantine are also practicing lawnmower social distancing – are clients who are just waiting to be found.  We search and search, we find one, and we crack open their plastic colorful shell and find them sweating in there for lack of oxygen, overjoyed that a large human has rescued them.  It’s a wonderful treat, and it’s our preeminent goal: finding that candy each day.  That, and using “preeminent” in a sentence.

Now, to be clear, I do not eat my clients.  It has always been my aim to provide quality voiceovers, not unswerving cannibalism.  But when I do find a new client, I find that the rush of obtaining them is very akin to the rush I feel when I’ve found candy:

• I worked hard to find it (because I greatly wanted to)
• It’s going to satisfy both of us inwardly (because of a deep sense of reward)
• I’m going to enjoy this (because of endorphins and hippocampus-related things and other sciency stuff)
• My clients are a sugary treat (because I needed a 4th bullet point to impress Google SEO enough to index me)

There’s also the thought that goes through my head: “God help the poor wayward fools who dare try to wrest it away from me, whom I will righteously smash on with a grim Biblical fury the likes of which this cold world has never before witnessed and shall not witness again.” Here I refer lovingly to my beautiful wife and children.

Whatever form candy takes, I will take said candy.  Offer me a choice between a plate of candy or a healthy plate of quinoa, asparagus and organic steamed chicken, and in full maturity I will proceed to respectfully slap the chicken into the mouth of the dog, lovingly insert the asparagus into your ears so that you vaguely resemble a weathervane, and dutifully thrust quinoa so far up your nose that you’ll lose all ability to correctly pronounce quinoa.

(Hint: it rhymes with “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis”).

Every day is Easter Egg Hunt Day

For me, as a voice talent and a marketer, every single day I love the hunt.  I’ve written about this before, comparing myself to a lioness.  Now that I think about it, in another blog of mine I’m a soccer mom.  And in yet another, I wear makeup.  So while I do my nails, listen to Kenny G, take a bubble bath and work out my gender dysphoria, consider this:

1. You can successfully market in the midst of a pandemic. All it takes is the right wording, a sensitivity to where people are at in their lives, and an offer of free toilet paper if they’ll simply hear you out.
2. You have only to continue looking. All this will require of you is a refined sense of commitment to stay in your home, a strong desire to provide food other than Top Ramen for your family, and a disdain for living under bridges due to being evicted.
3. You can perfect your craft as you go, much like Elizabeth Taylor got better and better at getting married. I think we can all agree she nailed it after her 47th attempt!
4. Clients are in need of your voiceover services. They’re just waiting out there for you to call them and say “I bet you’ve been just waiting for me to call you.”  To prepare for what’s next, I would take a moment to familiarize yourself with sailor-worthy profanity accompanied by a click and a dial tone.  This is why I like email: I hate being reamed out by clicks and dial tones.

You see? There you have it.  Every day, you’re out there in that tall grass, finding those beautiful colored eggs, opening them up and finding wonderful oxygen-starved clients in there who will do just about anything - anything - including casting you for multi-thousand-dollar paying roles with residuals as long as you promise to please not seal up the egg again.  It’s empirical, I’ve tried it, and I have eighteen reliable clients that I keep wrapped in cat-hair, sealed up in plastic eggs in a colorful wicker basket in my office to prove it.

So happy Easter Egg hunting, every day!

Sincerely,

A Man-Woman-Soccer-Mom-Lioness-Makeup-Wearing-Guy,

and his Candy-Thieving Wife

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HEY.  WAIT JUST A S.E.C.!

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Joshua Alexander
Seattle Voice Actor & Voiceover Talent for hire
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