Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

If I lived in California, I could have been on Japanese television. And I'm not just saying that in a wistful sort of way; I'm say it because it's true.

Tuesday, while I was otherwise occupied, the telephone rang. The person on the other end of the line identified herself as being from CafePress.com. She asked if this was a bad time.

Thinking that this might be a telemarketing call, I asked, "What is this regarding?"

She explained. It seems a reporter from Fuji TV News had called her, wanting to set up an interview with me because of my Security Mom T-shirts. She asked if I'd be interested in talking to him. I told her sure, so she gave me his contact information, which was a U.S. cellphone number.

I called him and left a message. Not long afterwards, he called back and asked me a few questions about the shirts. He wanted to know what had inspired them, first of all. I told him I came up with them during the presidential election hoopla, when everyone was talking about how important the security moms would be. I thought it might be a good idea for people to wear a T-shirt and let them know who they were talking to.

He asked me then if it was an issue that was personally important to me. I told him that I wasn't a mom but that if I were, I'd probably be a security mom, because security of this country is a major concern right now.

Then he explained the purpose of his story. He said he's doing a piece on security moms and was trying to come up with some visuals. That's how he came across my T-shirts, and he found them interesting.

But then he explained that they had a very small bureau in this country and that he had been planning to fly out to the West Coast later in the week to work on a different story. He'd been hoping to set up an interview with somebody for this story while he was there. I guess he'd been under the impression that, since Cafe Press is based in the Bay Area, that those who sell on it would be, too.

He asked me if I knew anybody on the West Coast who might be appropriate to interview. The only one I could think of was one of my oldest friends, who's a single mom and studying to be a lawyer. But she's in Seattle. And although she's political, I'm not sure you could call her a security mom.

I explained this to him and he seemed disappointed. He apologized for not being able to come to Philadelphia to interview me. Apparently, the budget wouldn't permit it.

He did ask permission to use my shirts, and I said sure. He got my e-mail address from me and promised me that he'd let me know what's going on with the story. The P.R. person from Cafe Press had offered to get him some samples of the shirts. And that was that.

I hung up feeling, at the same time, exhilarated and disappointed. But at least I got an interesting story out of it and possibly some media exposure for one of my T-shirt designs. Plus, how often can you say, "I could have been on Japanese television"?

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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