Another painfully familiar scene, courtesy of Chase Sapphire

Remember when you bumped into these people at your favorite low-cost hamburger joint?

You were just settling into your booth with your significant other for a burger and french fries and a little lighthearted talk.   You got your menus, you ordered your drinks, you started skimming the entrees.  No fuss, no muss, no problem.

Then they came in.  Two little kids and their dad (or at least, it SEEMED that their dad was there- kind of hard to tell, when you consider the behavior that followed.)  Naturally, they were put into the booth right behind you.  Maybe you didn't know it at that moment, but your plans for a quiet lunch were over the second they sat down.

Because for the next forty minutes, the kids would not stay in their seats for more than five seconds at a time.  Because they continuously leaned into your space, stared at you, and asked you to say "hi" to them.  (Being a civilized human being, you didn't say what you wanted to say, but instead replied "hi" to this total stranger you had no interest in talking to.  What you wanted to say was "get the fuck out of my face, where the hell is your father?")  Because they would not stop kicking the back of your seat.

And then the food came.  They threw french fries at each other, blew into their straws and splashed milkshake all over their table, fought over the ketchup and used every napkin at their table to make hats, parachutes- everything but for wiping their greasy faces.   You couldn't get your iced tea refilled, because your waitress was at their table pretty much every minute, waiting for them to decide what kind of ice cream they wanted, then replacing each kid's dessert twice because A) it wasn't Exactly What They Wanted, and B) It Spilled, Sorry.  

And all the time, "Dad" just sat there with a dumb look on his face, like he was so pleased that his asshole kids were bothering other people and not just him for a change- or more, likely, he was completely oblivious to the concept that maybe there were people in the restaurant other than himself and his worthless spawn.   I've had plenty of experience with "parents" who just assume that everyone finds their kids as delightful as they do- or think that if they have to put up with the little nasties 24/7, that's pain that should be shared on occasion, and if we are annoyed, we should seriously just fuck off.

Anyway,  Dickweed Dad, finally realizing that he had milked the whole Share My Family With The World thing for as long as he could, whipped out his Chase Sapphire card and handed it to the ever-present, and by now completely exhausted, waitress.  When he walked out of the place with his idiot kids, he left behind plenty of evidence that they had enjoyed themselves immensely- a mountain of napkins under the table, several puddles of milkshake on it, about a hundred globs of ketchup everywhere....

Oh, and a five percent tip.  These people are NEVER generous with their tipping- my guess is that they think the Joy Their Kids Bring is more than enough.  All of this putting the waitress in just the right mood to give you and your date a little attention, now that you are about ready to leave. 

Hey, Dad?  Maybe next time, you could just order a fricking pizza?  I know that means we are deprived of your wonderful boys, and you'll have to clean up your own god damned mess, but we'd like to have a nice dinner out sometime too, you know.

Oh, what am I thinking?  People like you don't give a flying crap about anything but your own convenience.  Sorry if I confused you.

I guess I just have a different idea of "Fun," Xfinity

These Xfinity "Fun=Television" commercials were never especially interesting.  Now they are really starting to piss me off.

They all carry the same message- there is absolutely, positively nothing more enjoyable than watching people do things on a screen.  Want to relax by yourself?  Don't even think about picking up a book- just watch this.  Big screen hanging on the wall, small screen sitting in your hand, no matter.  As long as you are watching.  Quality time with the family?  That means gathering on the couch, pushing a button, and spending the next two hours- you guessed it- staring at the screen again.  I guess the only real difference between being alone and being with family is your ability to stretch out on the couch- and the amount of time it takes to get to the bottom of the popcorn bowl.

Oh, and again with the "connectivity" bit.  You can be with your mom even when you can't- there she is, waving at you from that same. Fricking. Screen.  Gee, she looks happy to see you, even to the point of waving like the stupid, clueless dumbass she is (why do people wave at cameras?  I've never understood this.)  When you get older, don't you dare bitch about the lack of parental supervision- Mom was always there for you, right there in the kitchen, on that screen.  She even gave you an "I love you" look and a wave.  What more could you ask for?

All this is marketed under the phrase "Endless Fun."  Somehow, I managed to have a lot of fun when I was a kid without all this crap.  No, it wasn't "Endless," but that's ok, because I imagine an imaginary land in which people had "Endless Fun" would be like that story where it's Christmas every day- it gets very cloying and boring.  What makes fun is the fact that it's not the ordinary routine.  Watching television was fun when I was a kid because the shows we viewed were usually on once a week, and if you missed it you had to wait for a rerun.  (If you missed a Christmas Special, like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, it was pretty darned near the end of the world, because you'd be waiting an entire year before getting a chance to see it again.  So you didn't miss it.)  I can't see how television is fun today, with On Demand and Hulu and Netflix and a thousand other ways to watch anything you want, any time you want, over and over again.

Know what's still fun? Hiking, swimming, playing Whiffle Ball in the backyard.  Baseball games.  Hersheypark.  The beach.  Buying food for hungry students Just Because. Know what all this has in common?  None of it involves a cable company, a satellite, or a glowing screen.  Which means none of it provides Endless Fun, I guess.  I'll take them anyway, though.

"The Mess Behind the Glory," Indeed

Back in the day, we used to call parents who woke their kids up at 4 AM every morning to hit the skating rink, dragged their five year olds to soccer, football, baseball and gymnastics and turned them over to sadistic coaches, and made them learn every musical instrument ever invented before they reached first grade Overcompensating Assholes.  Today, apparently, they are called Bring It Moms.


As near as I can tell, Bounty Paper Towels is currently celebrating Bring It Moms, those women who Couldn't Quite Achieve Success in Life Themselves Nothing to do With Them it Was Politics Plus they Grew Too Fast Despite the Asparagus Diet Mom Put Them On in Third Grade but who nowadays go Out of Their Way to Make Sure Their Kids Achieve Their Dreams ("their" meaning the kids, not the parents, and don't you dare say otherwise, Parent of a Loser Kid Who Has Fewer Trophies than Mine.)

These Moms went the Extra Mile by "letting" their kids turn their palatial suburban estates with massive living rooms into makeshift gyms- because the eight hours they forced their kids to be at the ACTUAL gyms under the iron control of aforementioned trainer wasn't always (ever) enough.  After all, it's a damned tough, competitive world out there, and it's NEVER too early for kids to learn this.  Mommy had to, and it did her a world of good, even though she did end up letting her parents, her Community, her Country, and God down by failing to make the Extremely Mini Olympics back in '76.  Sure it cost her all of her friends and any chance at a healthy, mentally stable adulthood, but she gained an eating disorder.  That's life, and you damned better get used to it.

Meanwhile, being old enough to perform gymnastics at a level that gets you considered for an Olympic slot (although "considered" is just code for "failure," honey) apparently doesn't mean being old enough to clean up your own Carnation Instant Breakfast, which yes Will Be the Only Thing You Have to Eat Today, There Will be Plenty of Time to be a Pig and eat Pig Food like the other Not Going to the Olympics kids When you Hit 14 and Your Life is Over.  The "Hardest Job in the World" isn't being one of these obsessive creeps.  It's being one of their kids.


Other than wiping up after their future therapy patients, I'm not exactly sure what we are supposed to be thanking these pushy pricks for.  Maybe we are supposed to thank them because their kids, when they grow up and move out of the house, never will?  (you don't hear "thanks for robbing me of my childhood, separating me from my non-athletic friends, and sending me to that special camp that none of my classmates went to every summer" all that often.  Ungrateful little bastards, they never appreciate a Bring it Mom's sacrifice.)  Are we really supposed to thank them for molding their offspring into people who will give us roughly fifteen seconds of entertainment value this summer- fifteen seconds which will be forgotten as soon as Something Else Comes on Television?  For a chance to chant "USA!USA!" because some kid we don't know and couldn't really give a damn about managed to be a little faster or a little stronger than the kid from The Ukraine or the People's Republic of China whom we also don't know and couldn't give a damn about?  


Does anyone really chant "USA! USA!" for any reason, ever?


Oh and BTW, do any of these kids have Fathers?  Or did they cut and run from the Bring it Moms when they realized that they were married to child-abusing lunatics?  If so, couldn't they have taken the poor kids with them?

One more thing- doesn't the "It" in "Bring It Moms" refer to the children? Anyone else have a problem with this?

Just to clear up any misunderstandings from my previous post

I think that these are the among the most effective ads on television, because they appeal to our basic humanity.

I don't think of pets as human beings, and though I adored the dog I grew up with (a beautiful Golden Retriever named Herman,) I don't think I ever considered him like a sibling.  After all, he was outside almost all the time, in all kinds of weather (I grew up on a farm and all of our pets were primarily "outside animals.")  And I think that people who insist that their animals are their "babies" are more than a little ridiculous (when they feel this way despite the fact that they have actual human children, the insistence moves beyond ridiculous and into the realm of sick- again, in my own humble opinion.)

True story:  I heard a woman on television once asked if she could only save her cat or her baby from a burning building, which would it be?  She actually had to think about it for a few seconds before responding "my baby," and then "apologetically" added that she considers both her cat and the human being that came out of her as "her babies."

All this being said, I think that anyone who would abuse an animal is the lowest form of life on earth, and should be subject to the harshest possible punishment.   Just as I can't imagine what goes on in the minds of people who would harm a child, I truly cannot fathom how anyone could justify hurting or neglecting an animal.  And it's not because they look sad and confused, wanting only to earn our love and to give it in return.  I'd feel the same way if we were talking about snakes or racoons or any other animal that doesn't have the slightest interest or motivation in pleasing us, but just wants to occupy this planet too.  It's because they are God's creatures, and who the hell do we think we are to treat them like this?

I also can't imagine that anyone who treats an animal like this is going to be all that more decent to the human beings they encounter on a regular basis.  An abuser is an abuser.  In a world that is way too coarse and unfeeling, their contribution is, to say the least, unwelcome.

Hope this clears things up, and spares me the wrath of the pet owners out there.

Just a few points, Purina

1.  We didn't think this was clever thirty years ago.

2.  We didn't miss it.

3.  Making it longer, with two cats, doesn't make it worth watching.

No charge, glad I could help.  BTW,  in case you didn't get the point-

1.  This is really stupid.

2.  This is really annoying.

3.  This commercial makes me want to break my television.

4.  This commercial makes me hate cats, not want to feed them.

Oh, and a shout out to the stray cat I've been feeding for the past three years- hey, Miss Still Too Good To Let Me Pet Her Even Though You've Been Eating From My Back Porch Every Morning Since 2009, guess what?  The fact that my car is not in the driveway means I'm in Vermont for the summer, so you can just stop standing at the back door waiting patiently for the food you seem to think I owe you.  You'll have to take your meals with the old guy in the next house.  You know, that guy you let pet you.  That guy whose stomach you sit on when he lounges around in HIS backyard.  That guy who is no more your owner than I am, who feeds you exactly the same dry food as I do,  yet for some reason gets treated like a human being while I remain whatever the equivalent of a Leper is in your little cat-world.

I'll be back in late August.  Not that you care.

It makes actual human contact obsolete. Just say it already, Samsung

Sick.  Just Sick.

This phone "knows you."  Yes, better than you know yourself, I bet.  Certainly, better than anyone else knows you- especially if you've already turned into a socially isolated, techno-obsessed little fleeb.  Human beings don't know you, except perhaps as Facebook Friend #1346 or someone they follow on Twitter Just Because.  But none of that matters.  Because your phone knows you.

"Knows your every move."  Ugh, now we've added a healthy dose of Creepy to our already overflowing plate of Sick.  Yes, your phone learns all about you by keeping track of your usage patterns.  So it can eventually anticipate what you are going to text, who you are going to call, and where are you going to go.  In other words, it's the Big Brother you carry around in your hand.  The Big Brother which will eventually realize it's much smarter than you are (not the highest hurdle, I admit,) does not really need you or imput, and orders SkyNet to launch every missile in its arsenal. 

And can someone explain to me the grotesque phone-to-phone "contact" with the people separated by the transparent plastic divider?  I've already used Sick and Creepy- can I just go with "weird" here?  They "touch" palms.  They "touch" phones.  I feel there is something very disturbing going on here.  Are they "sharing" (man has THAT word been ruined by modern technology?)  Why doesn't Idiot 1 just send Idiot 2 the image?  What the fuck is WITH these people?

At this point, the Morons Acting Like Morons At The Wedding is almost a welcome relief.  Mugging for the camera, having the image sent to a thousand people, 998 of whom couldn't give a damn and will be deleting it five seconds later- this, I know how to deal with.

But the rest of this ugly, revolting cell phone worshiping Minute of Hate?  Please, spare me.  People who act like this are disturbed.  Companies that peddle this kind of behavior as somehow within the realm of "normal" are complicit in the destruction of society.  And anyone who thinks that there's something attractive about devices which replace actual human contact with the Cult of Connectivity and Sharing- well, I feel sorry for you.  Almost as much as I wish you would just fall off the face of the Earth already.

And you thought those Volt Owners were full of themselves

Look, I am very careful about what I eat.  I'm a nut for whole grains, don't touch alcohol or cigarettes, and eat very, very little meat.  I get a lot of mileage out of snarking on Golden Corral, Denny's, KFC and the other purveyors of low cost, but essentially poisonous, crap.   So I'm not going to go after the product itself here, though frankly I've never eaten a Kashi product that didn't taste like a handful of Rice Krispies, twigs and nuts held together by honey.

But I can't give this commercial a pass.  Seriously, the Pretension meter broke ten seconds in (around the time where Whistful Obvious Pregnant Woman starts staring thoughtfully out the window.)  Sorry, but the Kashi Will Save The World imagery is just a little over the top, don't you think?

I mean, I think it's great to encourage the Fattest People on Earth to eat sensibly- and to consume more unprocessed foods and less warm, meat-and-white-flour crud- but could the good folks at Kashi PLEASE get the hell over themselves already?  This is a commercial for a line of products pitched primarily to yuppies who want to show well for their neighbors- never mind that most kids would undoubtedly prefer real fruits, veggies and whole grains to the bizarre combinations the mad scientists at Kashi manage to come up with.  So please don't try to sell me on the idea that you are simultaneously re-inventing the wheel and saving the planet, ok?