Beware of God by Shalom Auslander

things he could not understand, but the need for suffering was something he never wanted to understand. He couldn’t stomach the sight of God these days, but what was he going to do? Tell the firm’s biggest client to go fuck Himself?
    Quietly, though, Goldsmith was having his own small revenge. Despite pressure from Deutsch and McCabe, he had refused to give God the CEO commercial that he no doubt wanted.
    If there was a second thing that Goldsmith had learned after thirty years in the advertising business, it was that, ultimately, every CEO wants to star in his own commercial. The CEO commercial gave them the chance to do that, disguising their narcissism and vanity as accessibility and concern. From Iacocca to God, they were all the same.
    Hello, I’m an egomaniac, and today I’d like to talk to you about me.
    Goldsmith wouldn’t do it.
    He wouldn’t give it to Him.
    We open on God in a field, making the flowers bloom! We cut to God in a forest, making the birds sing! We cut to God in a hospital, bringing babies into the world!
    No fucking way.
    â€œOkay, folks,” called Stacy, “let’s get started.”
    Goldsmith was still waiting for God to pull His nose out of the creamer.
    â€œBeautiful day,” Goldsmith tried.
    â€œI made it myself,” God answered loudly.
    Everyone laughed.
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    S TACY turned off the overhead lights and started the projector. God wondered aloud how much of that projector came out of His pocket.
    â€œSeventeen percent commission, my ass,” He said. Everyone laughed.
    Stacy began.
    The harsh reality was this: God was skewing old. And white. Of course, it was a difficult market. His numbers were through the mosque’s roof in the East, but in the West, God was in the toilet. As chart A clearly showed, there had been a short spike in His awareness levels immediately following 9/11, but it had been a nearly continuous freefall ever since—and even back then, His awareness was skewing negative.
    In response, as charts B, C, D and E showed, the agency had conducted focus groups in Atlanta, Houston and Chicago. They had given a roomful of college-educated men and women aged twenty-one to thirty-five earning over $50,000 per year a deck of picture cards. On each card was a picture of a famous celebrity, along with one extra card that just read “God.” There were two white boards hung on the wall; one board was labeled “Cool,” the other was labeled “Not Cool.” The moderators directed them to pin their celebrities to whichever board they felt most accurately described them.
    Jon Stewart, Quentin Tarantino and Moby all made it to the Cool board; Colin Powell and Rob Lowe did not.
    Most worrisome, Stacy concluded, was that in the opinion of sixty-eight college-educated men and women aged twenty-one to thirty-five and making over $50,000 a year, God was definitely “not cool.”
    God was right up there between Carrot Top and Gallagher.
    The projector was turned off, the lights were turned on and Goldsmith stood up. Presenting the ad campaign was his part of the show.
    He picked up his presentation boards and carried them to the head of the table.
    He tried to put aside his personal feelings toward God. He was a professional, after all, and this meeting was the culmination of six long months of work. Six months of early mornings and late nights, six months of Start Dinner Without Me and Not This Weekend, Mom, I’m Working.
    â€œWe have been working long and hard on this campaign,” Goldsmith began.
    God was rudely writing on his titanium Palm Pilot.
    â€œKick puppy,” Goldsmith imagined.
    Goldsmith’s mother hated those Palm Pilot things. He’d bought her one for what turned out to be her last birthday in an attempt to cheer her up. But her hands shook too much and she couldn’t remember the strange new alphabet. She liked to hold it, though; Goldsmith liked to imagine it reminded her of