I worked on an account for a new kind of cataract lens. Traditional cataract lenses are monofocal, that is, they provide vision at only one fixed distance, still, for someone with the cloudy overall vision caused by cataracts, this rocks. But the natural human lens actually flexes a bit and this allows you to see things at varying distances and the lens I was writing about was supposed to give patients back their natural ability to see things near, far and in-between. I authored propaganda about this particular product on many fronts, including a few radio spots we were set to record.

The company that made this product somehow had a connection to an old NFL player, a guy that would have played in my father’s era and was now a very prominent football announcer. It seems that cataracts were robbing the old guy of his vision, so he had these lenses implanted, and to hear him tell it, the vision he got back as a result saved his career. Now he was gonna testify by reading my radio scripts. Not career changing, but kinda cool, an NFL Hall of Famer recording my words in his highly recognizable announcer voice. I had a couple of his trading cards from back in the day and I was going to ask him to sign one.

I was waiting at the recording joint for him to show up. He was being shuttled to the studio by a VP of marketing type and I was told the talent may be moving a little slow because (a) he had to be in his seventies, and (b) he had other health issues, something about a beat-up liver from a life of fairly consistent boozing. Not wanting to appear over eager, I watched his arrival through the studio window. If you didn’t know this guy was a famous ex-pro football player you’d think the gentleman gingerly disembarking from the new SUV was your grandpa.

Before any formal introductions could be had, the voice of the NFL pushed past our small group and headed straight to the bathroom. Alas, while his new eyesight allowed him to spot the can from across the room, his body could not arrive until, well, it was too late. The old dude had crapped himself just like the Cleveland Browns do every Sunday.

Our celebrity voice talent spent, easily, the next twenty minutes in the bathroom. Had he walked straight into the recording studio the session would have been over already. While he was in there finishing the business that started prematurely, he was also apparently removing his clothes, inventively reassembling his outfit and finding creative uses for both sink and toilet. For those of us on the outside hoping to never have to look in, it was fairly simple to retrace the trajectory of the incident – as there was physical evidence (aka, crap on the carpet).

When he finally emerged all was sunshine and roses. He was chipper and ready to record. The owners of the studio were seriously chapped, with their only bathroom wiped out and the stretch of carpet between the front door and the bathroom looking like a dog trail after a holiday weekend (with the doggie bags running out on Saturday).

The stench in the place had a physical texture. Now whaddya do? The incontinent star asked to be shown to his spot in the studio. The owner, his two or three staff members, the VP of marketing and me eyed each other incredulously and then the owner, without comment, just waved him in the general direction. I followed him, after saying 1-2-3 Not It in my head to the unspoken question of “Who’s gonna clean this up?”

We all ignored the stinkin’ elephant in the room and tried to accomplish what we came for, but when the studio door closed it didn’t take but twelve seconds before the odor started bubbling up, clouding our senses and good judgment. It was clear that whatever kind of scrub and laundering mission was attempted in the head by our talent was a hideous failure, and I wasn’t the only one who was glancing at the soles of his shoes and then eyeing the perpetrator from the cuffs of his Dockers on up in utter fear of what might be discovered.

One couldn’t help but ponder – for at least one or two ugly seconds – the scientific logistics of what had occurred in the time between right now and when the NFL legend emerged from the SUV (now known as the crime scene arrival vehicle). I mean, I sorta get the medical and anatomical factors that can result in having to go really bad right now, but what I’m talking about is the physics, beyond gravity, whereby unmentionable objects traverse the path from colon-to-floor despite seemingly insurmountable fabric and physiological barriers.

Anyway, the V/O got recorded, my words were pretty clutch and the talent sounded just like he did on TV, but it goes without saying that the entire project left a bad smell in everyone’s mouth. The client ended up getting charged for an industrial cleaning like the kind they do after a building is exposed to the Zika virus.

I got one of my football cards of the man autographed, but I only handle the card with rubber gloves and tweezers.

Well, when it comes to writing words about the human eye, well, no one can say I don’t know my shit.

Photo on Visual hunt