April 8, 2011

Emergen-C to the rescue

As you may know, I toil away several of my days at Time Out New York. If you turn to approx. page six of that fine publication, you'll find a list of everyone who worked to make the issue a reality (called "the masthead" in publishing parlance), alongside three particular employees answering that week's "Staff question." And a few weeks ago…
A close-up of my response…
That was about two minutes of effort on my part. They e-mailed me the question, I had a half-finished glass of fizzy green stuff on my desk and a whole bunch of BQT events on my metaphorical plate. I did no research on the contents of Emergen-C, figuring nobody reads this nonsense anyway. Boom.

And lo, yesterday, I received a handsome gift bag, stuffed with four boxes of Emergen-C: tangerine, raspberry, lemon-lime, and—your favorite—"Blue." And a note from Lauren Castelluzzo of Hunter Public Relations, reading:

"Hi Noah,

"I recently came across the Time Out NY piece where you mentioned that you look forward to 'many a glass' of Emergen-C, and I thought you might like to try a variety of flavors!

"Also, just so you know, Emergen-C is naturally delicious. There are no artificial flavors or sweeteners. Each pack contains seven B vitamins, so there is no caffeine and more importantly,
no crash.

"Please feel free to contact me with any of your Vitamin C needs.

"Enjoy!
Lauren"

That last line is among the nicest things anyone has said to me in the past year.
I like Emergen-C, I really do; I'm drinking some tangerine right now (although I find it odd that it's a distinctive shade of sea green). I meant it when I said I figured that it would carry me through the spring, and a perusal of the ingredients list comfortingly indicates that Lauren is correct: This does not seem to be chock-full of the most evil substances known to man (the familiar catchall "natural flavors" seems to encompass much of the tangerine- or other-fruit-ness).

So I'm sorry, not only because I really should be aware what I put into my body without a publicist telling me, but also because these particular comments were for print, a medium I still consider sacrosanct when it comes to, you know, being factual. Then again, my sloppy journalism ended up scoring me four free boxes, so there's that.
But if I may, I think the official and rather impressive Emergen-C website should trumpet the non-artificialness more (hooray for Lauren, then, really doing her job). I mean, it's acid-smelling powder that somehow fills you with energy—you think they'd be constantly advising people that it won't fry your brain like flapjacks.

Yeah but, do I try some of the Blue flavor?