I pulled this advertisement out of the in-flight magazine in the airplane last week– as you can see it then floated around in my bag for a few days, where it became nice and crumpled, but I still thought it was funny enough to warrant smoothing it out and scanning it. I don’t know what it is about corporate propaganda on candy that I find so insidious– the one that says "4th quarter Rocked!" kills me. Spreading the message is one thing– give me all the corporate marketing you want in places like free pens and stuff I’ll get at a trade show and never use, like mousepads and squishy stress-balls shaped like red blood cells. But– dude. Candy? Is nothing sacred?? First of all, the message is lost, because I’m eating the vehicle. And also? Maybe I wouldn’t want to eat so much candy if I weren’t so depressed by things like this.
See how that goes? It perpetuates itself. The very existence of the corporate candy depresses me, causing me to want to eat it. Hey, maybe that’s what they were going for the in the first place. Certainly memorable, and definitely worth being rescued from the bottom of my bag, don’t you think?
Another amusing item I’ve been meaning to scan is this hilarious brochure for a cholesterol-lowering medication. We were in the grocery store when we spotted this, and Steph was like "Clearly your problem here is not high-cholesterol– it’s the fact that you have an entire ham sandwich floating around in your veins." I have to agree-I see what they’re going for, but these graphics are totally overexaggerated and funny. Wow– is that really what it looks like once I’ve eaten roasted chicken? Neato!
This totally reminds me of the time my grandma was getting in my face, trying to convince me that her cholesterol is lower than mine even though she eats bacon, and I was refusing to participate in this ridiculous discussion because she had a heart attack ten years ago and since then has been on the cholesterol drugs instead of just changing her diet. Not fair, right? Her cholesterol is probably NOT lower than mine because she’s 97 and that’s just impossible, but the very nature of the argument is absurd as well. She’s totally on the "whole piece of bacon in your veins" medication!
I don’t know how it works exactly, but she’s very pleased with the results, and continues to eat smoked meats in blatant defiance of doctor’s orders. As she munches away, she smiles and says things like "my cholesterol has never been lower!"