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Saturday, May 22, 2004
The nice thing about having a camera phone is that it allows you to document all of the hilarious signs and packages that might otherwise go unridiculed. For example:
Yah! This is the so-called “friendly” leprechaun on the front of the Lucky Charms box. Since when was this guy so creepy? The Lucky Charms leprechaun I remember was a bumbling, happy-go-lucky elf with a girlish voice who was regularly outwitted by seven-year-olds attempting to make off with his breakfast cereal, on account of the fact that it contains tiny “marshmallows” that taste like flavored pencil erasers, which kids apparently cannot resist.
This new, modern leprechaun seems more like Leprechaun. Years of torment by young, sugar-hungry children have apparently turned him from a lovable oaf into a maniacal, bloodthirsty killer. Just look at the mad gleam in his eye. His teeth seem to have fused together into two deadly plates of bone, and what’s up with the disturbing lack of nostrils? Are these physical mutations caused by a steady diet of children raised on junk food? Or are they the result of diabolical scientific experiments, his body slowly becoming twisted and misshapen as he attempts to transform himself into the ultimate killing machine?
Either way, it’s not what you want to look at right after you wake up. Parents, I cannot stress this strongly enough: teaching your children to avoid crazed, sugar-bearing maniacs begins at the breakfast table.
This is the wrapper from a cookie I bought at the cafeteria at work. In case you can’t read it, it says “Oatmeal Cinnaraisin Cravin’ Cookie”. Cinnaraisin? Are we inventing fruits now? “I’ll take a half pound of the cinnaraisins and a quart of cuminberries.” Is it too much to ask that they spell out “cinnamon” and “raisin”? And while we’re at it, let’s talk about this “cravin’” business. First of all, for $1.29 I think I’m entitled to read every single letter. This rampant apostrophization needs to stop. Second, what is a “cravin’ cookie”? I assume that they’re implying that it’s a cookie so good that I will crave it, but it makes it sound like they put nicotine in it or something. Advice to marketers: unless your product is in some way designed to help people stop smoking, do not include the word “crave” on the package.
My diatribe about this wrapper would have been much lengthier if the cookie hadn’t been so damned good. Those cinnaraisins are addictive.
Again with the apostrophe? Holy crap, people! I understand the need to differentiate one's product from the others in an increasingly crowded marketplace, but this is getting ridiculous. What’s next, “W’d”? “Pl’st’c”?
I went to a seafood restaurant in downtown Seattle called “Oceanaire”. I walked through the restroom door and was immediately assaulted with the following, painted on the wall in six-inch high letters:
“The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.” - James Joyce
Yes, OK, Joyce was a fine writer, and I applaud his inventive wordplay, but is that really what we need to read right before we pee? One cannot control the images that spring to one's mind after reading such a sentence. The whole experience was extremely uncomfortable, both emotionally and physically. I can only imagine what was on the wall in the women's bathroom.
On the positive side, at least he had the decency to spell out the entire word. If someone wrote that today it would probably be “Scrot’m”.
Oh Jesus. Here we go again.
(Also: "nutmeat"?)