Thursday, July 31

Total dregs

• Preprinted tab dividers for notebooks
• 4 plastic champagne cups
• Wall fan (from, like, someone’s office)
• Box of four 3-inch high Grecian pillars for decorating tiered cakes

Giveaway giveaway! The first person to e-mail me with a knock-knock joke about Greece wins the box of Grecian pillars. Don’t hesitate! These classic beauties, which complement any tiered cake, retail for a whopping $3.99.

Wednesday, July 30

Pop quiz!

Answer: At 11 a.m., you grab 1 bottle for yourself. It’s a nice cotton candy pink—not too bright, not too pale—that will look great on your toes.

At 1 p.m. you go back and take 2 more, because you should get one for your sister and your best friend because it’ll also look great on their toes too.

Then an hour later, you remember your other friends and wonder if they’ll feel left out when you and Lily show up at the beach with your totally excellent cotton candy toes, so you snag another 5.

But then you start to think about college in a year and suddenly it seems like the best idea in the world to have a big stash in case you want to give one to every girl in your freshman dorm as a “Hi, nice to meet you, please like me“ gift.

So ultimately the answer is some complicated calculus formula with lots of Xs.

or> You could just count all the bottles but you don’t want to take them all out because you’re afraid someone might see that you took half the box.

Friday, July 25

Big day for Bad-Break Betty!

First she gets a brand-new outfit. Caitlin swipes a bright pink feather duster from the giveaway and makes a feathered skirt and matching headpiece for her. Pink’s a little girlish but it looks punk rock on Betty.

Then I see a mini school locker. It’s a promotional item for a new antidepressant medication and as tall as my fridge. We put Betty’s name on it in bubble letters and make three tiny books for her to keep in it.

Then we debate for hours whose picture to hang up on the inside. Caitlin says Shia LaBeouf, who I shoot down as way too mainstream. I suggest Joey Ramone but Caitlin doesn’t know who he is. We go back and forth all day until we agree on Robert Frayn, Savvy’s photo editor. He never talks to anyone and when he does he’s really mean and he walks around with a scowl on his face like you better get out of his way before he knocks you over. He’s exactly the kind of guy Betty would’ve fallen for in high school.

trivia time> More of your brain is used to move your thumb than is used to control your torso or stomach.

Thursday, July 24

Argh!

The book situation is relentless. I take The Big Book of Women’s Trivia to read on the train.

and> Rumblings of a beauty sale. They haven’t had one in six months, and everyone says the beauty closet is overflowing with products. Fingers crossed.

Wednesday, July 23

Soypal? Soy Buddy!

Instantaneous response from Soypal!

“Hi Chrissy,
Thank you for your e-mail. The silica gel packet is used to remove humidity and keep the cookies fresh. We’re glad that you like the cookies :) Please feel free to email us if you have other questions.
Customer Service”

Maybe using silica to control humidity is smart. I mean, nobody likes soggy cookies. But I still don’t think you should mix inedible with edibles. The silica crystals look like perfect little hard candies, which makes me want to empty the packet into my mouth like Tic Tacs. And the DON’T EAT warning isn’t helping. It only makes them more tempting. Forbidden fruit. Why can’t I eat them? What will happen? I throw the packet away before the lure of discovery becomes overwhelming. Then I stare at the trash.

• 36 jars of Fresh Wave odor neutralizing crystals
• Project Runway season premiere rough cut
• SweetFiber, 0-calorie sweetener with fiber to help you lose weight
• 2 silver bud vases

Tuesday, July 22

Taste-Test Tuesday!

What: Soypal Cookie Diet

Huh?: Small round cookies that look like Nilla Wafers. They’re part of a diet plan in which you replace one meal a day with a packet of 7 cookies. Then you drink 2 glasses of water so that the cookies expand in your stomach and fill you up.

Shoutout: “Losing weight is soy easy.”

Expectation: Yummy. I love Nilla Wafers.

Reality: Dry, mealy, bland. What I imagine a dog biscuit tastes like.

addendum> A little silica gel packet like the kind you get with leather shoes is also in the package. It says in all cap letters, DON’T EAT. I find it strange that something you can’t eat is in a box with things you can eat, so I look on the website for an explanation. Nothing about it in their FAQs. I Google soypal and silica. Still nothing. Hmm. I e-mail the company: “Hi. I just opened my first pack of soypal cookies. They are delicious. Thanks. But I noticed there was a silica gel packet in it. Why is that there? Thanks. Chrissy Gibbons.”

Monday, July 21

Books! Books! Books! Books!

It’s so not fair. You know the editors are getting great stuff and all they’ll put out are these boring books.

• The Big Book of Women’s Trivia by Alicia Alvrez
• Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams by Pamela Skillings
• Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult’s Life—For the Better by Jeanne Safer
• You’re So Money: Live Rich, Even When You’re Not by Farnoosh Tarobi
• You Are What you Remember: A Pathbreaking Guide to Understanding and Interpreting Your Childhood Memories by Patrick Estrade
• Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy
• The Best Birth: Your Guide to the Safest, Healthiest, Most Satisfying Labor and Delivery by Sarah McMoyler
• Cat in a Sapphire Slipper: A Midnight Louie Mystery by Carole Nelson Douglas
• The Yummy Mummy Manifesto: Baby, Beauty, Balance and Bliss by Anna Johnson
• Simplify Your Holidays: A Christmas Planner to Use Year After Year by Marcia Ramsland

Friday, July 18

Meet Bad Break Betty!

Slow day. Half the staff leaves at noon to go to some big party in the Hamptons and me and the other interns kick around looking for something to do. I check out the giveaway every hour but there’s nothing but books and busted-cheek Barbie. Bored and unable to stand how sad and pathetic she looks, I take the doll and lean her against the fridge, which she towers over. Caitlin, who also has nothing to do, makes a skirt for her out of Kikkoman soy sauce packets and cuts a coffee lid into the shape of a guitar that she plays with her paperclip hand. She calls her Bad Break Betty and says she’s had a rough life playing rock-and-roll in seedy dives across the country. She had a record deal once but lost it when her producer was killed in a knife fight in front of the Whiskey in L.A.

Thursday, July 17

Snag!

A mini-fridge. Not one of those pint-size refrigerators you put in your dorm room but a real teeny, tiny mini-fridge that’s practically useless. It’s so small it can hold only a can of soda and a container of yogurt. One soda. One yogurt. Nothing else. It’s so useless, I jump on it the second Lois puts it out. My very own fridge! I plug it in, keep it on my desk and work diligently to its quiet hum all day. Happy day.

Wednesday, July 16

Giveaway table rule #5

A healthy-snack-food company sends a container of guacamole encased in a giant Styrofoam avocado, which immediately winds up on the giveaway. (But not the guacamole or chips: See GTR #1.) It’s three times the size of a football and looks like kitschy fun, so I take it to put on my bed as an ironic, post-American Girl Place comment on dolls but it’s a total failure. It keeps rolling off and it makes my orange quilt look slightly ill.

ps> The lump of coal is gone. Maybe one of the cleaning people took it. Busted-cheek Barbie is still there.

Tuesday, July 15

Taste-Test Tuesday!

What: Snikiddy Chocolate Chippers

Huh?: Organic whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies

Shoutout: “Have a healthy day!”

Expectation: Very low. I mean, c’mon. Whole wheat?

Reality: Not bad. They taste just like Chips Ahoy. You’d never know there was whole wheat in them if they didn’t inadvisably announce it on the package. You have a healthy day too!

Monday, July 14

Photo Free-for-All!

The photo department dumps a bunch of props, which happens every so often. This makes for strange giveaway-table-ing.

1. The items tend to be used. Caitlin, an assistant editor in the features department, snags a pair of red-and-silver Pumas in size 7 that were worn by a model for a workout shoot. They’re in almost perfect condition. Hopefully the model will become famous so Caitlin can brag that she has her sneaks.
2. Stuff comes out all day, so everyone’s on high alert. You don’t want to go down to lunch because you might miss something good like red-and-silver Pumas (I’m a 7 too).
3. A lot of the stuff isn’t worth missing lunch for and should just be thrown away. They actually put out a Barbie doll with a cracked face. They tried to drill a hole in her cheek to illustrate an article about compulsive pimple picking but her entire face cracked. And for some reason she’s missing an arm. There’s a piece of thin metal like a paperclip where her elbow should be. She sits there all day, looking—impossibly!—even sadder than the lump of coal. Lump of Barbie.

• Red, white and blue quilt (for an article about how to sleep better)
• 4 bottles of dealcholinated wine and plastic wine glasses (for an article about low-cal drinks)
• 10 hula hoops (for an article about the new fitness craze)
• Pair of Cressi Fins scuba diving fins, the Clio model (for an article on tropical vacations)

Friday, July 11

Giveaway table rule #4

This rule is irrefutable, like gravity. Every single time an editor puts out something really good, Adele gets it. It doesn’t matter where she is at the time. I could be standing next to the table and she could be in the bathroom and yet somehow she’ll snag it. Adele is sneaky and she moves quietly like a snake. And she’s my boss. Well, technically, Lois, the health editor, is my boss, but Adele is the associate editor and gets to tell me what to do. So that gives her an advantage because I can’t snatch, say, a pair of turquoise earrings from Anthropologie (gorgeous!), from her under her nose because she’ll just make me do more crappy stuff. I didn’t take this internship to spend my days picking up dry cleaning for a grumpy associate editor.

Thursday, July 10

A lump of coal!

No joke. An actual lump of coal shows up on the giveaway table. It’s called Hakutan and the press release claims it’s an air purifier. Apparently coal purifies the air. Per the release, “Haku means white in Japanese and tan means charcoal. These stems may be placed in your bathroom to regular humidity or any place in the home or office where you want pure, balanced air.”

Cool. But it’s still a plain old lump of coal. Several people stop to examine it but nobody commits. Poor sad little lump of coal lying there open and exposed for anyone to look over. It doesn’t even have a Christmas stocking to hide in.

Wednesday, July 9

Giveaway table rule #3

Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many books come out every month—and most of them are self-help guides for the truly desperate. It’s insane. And they all sound alike. A sampling of the current crop:

• The Change Your Life Challenge: A 70-Day Makeover Program for Women by Brook Noel
• Unstuck: Your Guide to the 7-Stage Journey Out of Depression by James Gordon
• Weight a Minute! Transform Your Health in 60 Seconds a Day by Deborah Herlax Enos
• Confidence Is Queen: The 4 Keys to Ultimate Beauty Through Positive Thinking by Susie Castillo
• The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization in Your Life by Patrick Lencioni
• Self-Help Is Dead Boring: 20 Mind-Numbing Books About How to Improve Your Life by Chrissy Gibbons

oh> Lulu is eying my hatbox. She comes over to ask Adele about a SUNY Albany study about rats and anti-aging cream but it’s clearly just a ruse. She stares at my hatbox so hard I’m surprised there isn’t a hole in it.

Tuesday, July 8

Hatbox fever!

A fashion assistant puts blue-striped hatboxes on the table today and creates an instant feeding frenzy. Total blood-in-the-water shark fest. It’s as if nobody has ever seen a hatbox before in their life. People swarm in seconds. There are 13 in all and each in a different size. It’s crazy. Because who needs a hatbox? Like, seriously, who goes around wearing a hat that can’t be tossed into a shoulder bag or even stuffed into your pocket? But the fever is contagious, and suddenly the most important thing in my life is getting one too. I lose valuable seconds when I trip over Adele’s chair but still beat Lulu in Beauty for the last one. Yes! I keep it on my desk as a badge of honor. (Also, it’s so big, I’m not sure how to get it home on the train.)

Monday, July 7

Exercise is as American as apple pie!

In honor of the Fourth of July, the fitness editor puts a ton of stuff on the giveaway. Or maybe she’s just cleaning her office. (Cleanliness is next to godliness, and God is as American as apple pie. Happy belated Independence Day to you!) Excited, I snag the ProHands Via Hand Exerciser in medium tension. Finally, hope for my seemingly-normal-but-actually-too-fat-for-the-size-of-bowling-ball-I-can-pick-up fingers! For years, I’ve been unable to squeeze my hefty digits into an 8-pound ball. But now I can whip them into shape. Strike City, here I come!

• Silver fitness ball, uninflated
• Black yoga pants, size 2, and yoga mat from the Barefoot Yoga Co.
• 2 pink 3-pound dumbbells
• Jump rope

giveaway giveaway! The first person to e-mail Free! with their current hand exercise routine wins a Pro Hands Via Hand Exerciser ($11.95 value).

Wednesday, July 2

Giveaway table rule #2

It’s simple. You can’t take something you don’t see. If your desk isn’t a few feet away from the giveaway table like mine—and even with my prime real estate, I have to stretch my neck to see what’s going on—map out a path that takes you by it as much as possible. I recommend the kitchen-bathroom circuit. The more water you drink, the more often you’ll hit the bathroom, the more stuff you’ll score and the faster the day will go. It’s win-win-win.

oh, and> The giveaway table isn’t always a table. At Savvy, it’s a file cabinet. But whatever. The trick is to keep it in your sights.

• 2 rainbow-striped Tommy Hilfiger towels
• Small mirrored jewelry box
• Sally Hansen natural beauty sheerest cream blush
• Package of white Hanes T-shirts in medium

Thursday, June 26

Giveaway table rule #1

The giveaway table works like this: Editors get promotional items from companies hoping to have their product mentioned in the magazine. Sometimes it’s a sample like a pair of tights from Spanx or it’s a fun thing with the logo like a hula girl bobblehead in a bright blue skirt or it’s an inexplicable item like a red plastic soda can that says Mastercraft 40th Anniversary. (Um, Mastercraft is a boat company so, like, where’s the connection?) But the editors usually keep the glam snags for themselves so the giveaway table tends to be a lot of energy drinks and sugar substitutes.

• HC Color Fantasies system with patented Preciso applicator
• 4 martini glasses
• Black pillow with gold fringe and embroidered white K
• Lime green Scotch tape dispenser