For my writing group (Joan, Nancy, Grace) This assignment from Nancy: Write a piece having to do with this image. (Note: Among the graphics on the bag is the instruction to Pull Handles Up and Out.)

Dr. Creel reached under his desk and put a sack of groceries on the corner nearest Halil Gorshani. All he got from the arrogant young middle-easterner was a stare. “My executive art director said you had the best portfolio at the Academy, Gorshani. I don’t understand how you could let something like this get through.”

“Something like this? Like what?”

Dr. Creel hefted the bag a few inches. When nothing happened, he pumped it up and down until a handle ripped free from it’s glued attachment. The bag began to rip, and the food — chosen, it appeared to Gorshani, for its heavy wetness — cascaded onto the desktop, then spilled to the thickly carpeted floor. A jar of tomato sauce rolled up to the creative director’s loafer. He pushed it away with his toe. “If that broke, I’d have gotten a nasty gash.”

Not if you wore socks, Halil thought, but he simply said, “I don’t know what you’re getting at.” Gorshani was clearly nervous. It was the first time Dr. Creel had seen any evidence of that. It’s about time Wonder Boy acquired some humility.

“You left something important out of the design.” Standing between bookends on the creative director’s desk was a thick volume entitled, Law and Product Manufacture. He pulled it out and displayed it like he was in court.

Halil defended himself. “You say you want human interest and I put a man with telescope. Maybe he is a discoverer. And this man with a crazy flying contraption on his back. And an old airplane and an elegant fork. I did not make the poorly constructed bag. And I must say, Dr. Creel, that it appears to be wet.” Halil gripped the top of the sack and pulled a soggy strip of paper free.

“The problem has nothing to do with pretty pictures, Gorshani. Sacks get wet. It’s a fact of store environments.” Dr Creel exhaled loudly, then reached in his drawer and produced a binder. “This is required reading for our designers. Have you read it?”

It was foreign to Halil. “No. No, sir.”

“It’s from the focus group last month in Emeryville.”

“I’m sorry, I was in Pakistan. On vacation.”

“Not much of a vacation, I would think.”

“Well, it was, sir. It was marvelous. I got married.”

Dr. Creel double-clutched, managed a congratulatory utterance, and sent Halil Gorshani back to the graphics room. Then he called the mail room to have Bingley come and clean up the mess.

Gorshani pulled up the bag design files and studied them. Then he read the email with the job reqs. The last line said “per Glaston, inf.” He called Mary Zig and had her come by. “What’s this mean?” he said. “Glaston’s the focus group company,” she said. She went to her cubicle, returned, and handed him the same binder Dr. Creel showed him.

After a few minutes of study, he found out where he’d gone wrong. Of the twelve focus group members, nine had voted Yes, there must be a warning — Pull Handles Up and Out.

Halil went back to Mary. “This is so fucking stupid.” She shook her head in sorrowful agreement. “You’re not the only one in trouble. This just came out yesterday.” It was a new focus group study from the Glaston Group. Yes, respondents agreed, the bag bottom should display directions for disposing of paper products. There was another thing: Images of people in non-standard flight apparatuses are not a good idea.

Halil called his new wife and asked if she though she might like to live in Europe. She was ecstatic. That made Halil happy too. He found the card: Heinrich and Hebbon Advertising. Gunther Werner, Creative Director. Halil emailed and said he’d call at 9 a.m., Berlin time.