It finally happened!
(And with fabulous coincidental timing!)

I've been writing junk mail (ahem -- direct mail) since 1992. And in all these years, I've never been mailed anything I've written as though I were a legitimate potential customer. I've received tons of seed mailings -- addressed to some variation of Jake Q. Sample and mailed so we can gauge when our packages are reaching the public -- but I've never gotten a plain-old Jake-written mailing with my plain-old name on it.

Until today. I opened my mailbox after work tonight to find the control package I wrote last year for the AT&T Universal Platinum MasterCard® sitting there waiting for me. (It's in a white envelope with a jumble of months printed down the right side with a big BONUS reversed out of a blue-and-red rectangle -- in case you wanted to check to see if you got it too. And a control package, for those of you who are just dying to know, is the package that continues getting the best response every time it's tested against a different package in the mail. I currently have two controls in regular circulation (thank you for your applause), but I'll never receive the other one because it's aimed at business owners who carry the American Airlines credit card from Citibank.)

But I digress. Big surprise.

Anyway, the great coincidence here is I just returned from a day trip to NYC to present new concepts to Citibank for the upcoming relaunch of the AT&T Universal Platinum MasterCard®. And the control package I wrote for that very card is sitting in my mailbox when I get home. Is that not completely cosmic?

I do find it kind of funny that three of us have spent countless hours today in cabs, airports, planes, more cabs and corporate cafeterias so we could spend one hour in front of the client and then hop in cabs, airports, planes and more cabs once again to get home in time for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.