All of this made me ponder quite a bit. So here are a few of my ponderings...
I started the day with a quick lunch at the land of the golden arches. And as I was eating the best meal two dollars can buy, I happened to glance down at my placemat type thing.
Free uniforms? Well goddamn! I gotta sign me up for some Mickey D's right now! WHoooo---eee!
But seriously. It's a very noble gesture...I suppose. Because as soon as I thought this, my first thought was, are there people who pay for their own uniforms?
In fact, there are. There happen to be some underhanded, morally corrupt, deal with the devil companies who do indeed make people pay for their own uniforms (I'm lookin' at you, Pizza Hut!). I imagine that if I were in a job that required that, I would be in the interview and as soon as they mentioned the "buying the uniform" idea, I would just stop and say "I'm sorry. I don't believe I can take a job where I, as the employee, have to be paying you...the guy who's supposed to pay me. Because...because that's backwards and wierd and unless Bizzarro Superman is flying in the sky, I just can't do that."
Later on, I was wandering around, and I saw this lovely set of cookware for sale:
I like Paula Deen all right enough, I suppose. I don't begrudge her for hawking cookware. But it got me thinking...if someone is famous, can they sell a product that has nothing to do with what they are famous for? Say, if I became a famous writer, would people buy my blenders? My toaster ovens? My condoms? Could I just slap my face and name on anything and sell it? Certainly not, right? No one is buying Stephen King brand cat litter. The concept is just ludicrous, right?
Wrong. In the very next ailse, there was the item that proved me wrong. And it's not like these things aren't popular. Because they are. I had one, for god's sake. And it's great! They're great little machines, sold by a man who got punched in the face for a living. Hmm....
And lastly, I wandered into Office Depot to look for a couple things. And I found something entirely different which tickled my funny bone.
Yes sir, that is a gen-u-ine realistic 3-D fish screen saver. And hold on. Hold on! That's not just one screen saver. That's two. Yes sir, two screen savers. One box. I must be crazy to give away two!
Ah, but they're not giving them away, are you, Office Depot? No. No, and what do they think these screensavers are worth?
20 dollars. 20. Two screen savers. 20 dollars.
A search of "free fish screensaver" pulls up over 436,000 sites giving away this screen saver. And Office Depot wants to sell it to you for 20 bucks. Oh, they also have sub-prime mortgages for you in aisle 6 next to the printers if you're interested.
And to be fair, Office Max sells the same screensavers for the same price.
And the scary thing? People had obviously purchased a few. Good lord.
Till later...
--Paul
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