SALTY PETERS COMEDY

I love McDonald’s chocolate chip cookies. They are seriously like the best cookies I ever had. I’m absolutely convinced of this. I’m also totally certain that the cookies they are selling are nothing more than Pillsbury’s ready made pop them in the oven cookies. Anyway, the highlight of my day is when I can pull up to the drive through at the right time and get the cookies fresh and warm. But the other day my timing was all off because I had to go to work. So I pulled up and ordered my cookies and a chocolate shake. I drove off without looking at the wrapper first, and I was already a bit a ways away when I went to get a cookie when I noticed there was a sticker sealing the wrapper. This was a first. The sticker read, “Must be used by 7:30 pm 5/24/2009.” Holy shit, it’s was 5:55 when I bought the cookies. Not only did I fail to get fresh cookies, but these cookies were about to expire. And internal battle began to rage as I debated taking my time and savoring the cookies as I always do, or eating them quickly so I won’t die if I consume cookie after 7:30 pm. Then my high brain functioning took over and I realized that they probably meant that they needed to sell the cookies by that time. But why? If the cookies are safe to consume after 7:30 pm, then why have that sticker. No, it had to mean that I would need eat 3 cookies in less than 95 minutes. Normally not a big deal, but I was already walking into work and I had to leave my food in the back room. So it’s not a given that I will be able to consume three cookies in that time frame, especially if we actually have customers. Again, the pressure was on to decifer the code.

The advertising industry, my friends, is in dire straits. Undoubtedly, this free fall has been going on for some time, but it wasn’t until the total economic meltdown that I have come to realize the lack of creativity and original thought in the advertising industry. Mainly because I was so consumed with the lack of creativity and original thought in Hollywood. Take for example the recent explosion of the Twilight series. A bunch of teenage girls, as well as 20 and 30 something women that have refused to grow up, love that series and are in love with the movie. What made those books so juicy for Hollywood was that they are written for easy adaptation to the silver screen. It seems as though author Stephanie Meyers wanted to make the money from Hollywood as well, and while she succeeded in that respect, she contributed nothing of value to the literary world. And now we have the return of True Blood, an HBO series about a human woman that is in love with a vampire. Actually, if I were Stephanie Meyers, I’d be suing for royalties.

Which brings me back to the advertising industry. Ever since the economy tanked and the president and congress started the economic recovery act, everything turned into stimulus and bailout commercials. Half the time none of this crap made sense. For several weeks, it was as though everywhere you looked this is the only idea that people have. Seriously? Is the advertising industry this bad? The guys on Mad Men must be kicking themselves in the face over how painfully uncreative these commercials are. Not just that, but grammatically, they don’t make any sense. I saw this one for McDonald’s where they are advertising an “Appetite Stimulus Plan.” This doesn’t make any sense. Let me break this down for you. President Obama put forth an Economic Stimulus Plan, meaning that his plan would stimulate the economy. So it would follow that an Appetite Stimulus Plan is a plan to get somebody’s appetite working again. If I’m heading to Mickey D’s, however, I don’t need an Appetite Stimulus Plan. Clearly, my appetite is already stimulated, that’s why I’m heading there in the first place. What I need is an Appetite Satisfaction Plan. This is like Sprite jumping on the bandwagon of creative stagnation, and changing their slogan from “Obey Your Thirst” to “Sprite: The Thirst Stimulus Plan.” Oh shit, I just gave them an idea, didn’t I?

Another thing that really dumbfounded me was the rally caps for GM.
I cannot believe this is where we are? Rally caps are what a baseball team pulls out when it has tried all its substitutions, line up changes and defensive strategies and nothing has worked. They are down by 8 runs in the bottom of the ninth and need a miracle. Is GM genuinely out of solutions that they pulled out the “We have no fucking idea what to do, so we’re asking everybody to turn their hat inside out and just pray for a miracle.” Did you see their confidence plan? This isn’t a plan. How about they man up and call it what it is, a Hail Mary. “We know our cars suck and cost a lot of money to maintain, so if you buy one of our cars and they fuck up, we’ll pay for it. Please, just buy our cars, we don’t know what else to do.”

Thankfully in the 24-hour news cycle that we live in, the bailout and stimulus commercials were over as quickly as they started. Even so, a lot of companies are suffering and are looking for ways to increase traffic to their store. Which is cool. But stay true to yourself, for the love of God. I’m watching TV and I see an Applebee’s commercial advertising Carside To Go. What the hell? Really, they now have a pseudo-drive-thru for a SIT DOWN RESTAURANT! And as a customer, what has to happen in your brain to make Carside To Go a good idea? Let’s see, you took the initiative to call in the order, put your pants back on, but not your underwear because you’re only making a quick trip, find your keys and wallet, then drive the 3.7 miles to your closest Applebee’s. But the last 20 feet when you get there, no thanks, I’m good, I’ll just call in and let them know I’m outside so they can bring it to me.

Furthermore, I don’t like it when they assume that we are all idiots and ready to run out to buy something just because a famous person is attached to it. Like in the movies, for example, when they tell you that a certain movie was done by “So and so, the director of such and such previously successful movie.” Case in point, there is this new horror movie Drag me to Hell and the trailer starts out saying, “From Sam Raimi, the director of Spider-Man and the Evil Dead Trilogy.” This is how they are going to try and sell the movie? What do they expect to accomplish with this? “Oh you know what, that movie looked like shit, but the guy that was responsible for two great Spider-Man movies then totally ran the franchise into the ground with the last one made this, so now I will totally go see it.” Not only that, but if they have to explain who the director is, this isn’t a good thing. For example, if a new movie comes out created by Stephan Spielberg, they just say, “From the mind of Stephan Spielberg,” and that’s it. Cool, that I have no problem with that. You don’t hear them say, “From Stephen Spielberg, the director of E.T.” If you need to be explained who you are, then maybe you shouldn’t be laying claim to it. For once I would like to see, “From producer Jerry Bruckhiemer, the douchebag that single handedly ruined the Batman franchise, then in a way is indirectly responsible for Christopher Nolan taking over and making it good again, even better than that first movie in 1989, so you should probably give this movie a chance, cause you never know.”

Finally, the way they advertise to women is actually quite sickening (and disturbing if it actually works). I’m channel surfing the other day and I see four hot women in short shorts dancing sexy, so I stop to check out the women and see what they are selling. I figure it’s beer or pizza or something, but whatever they are selling there is a good chance that I am going to buy it. That is until I realized they are selling new Nair waxing strips. Another sexy woman tossing her gorgeous sexy hair quickly follows that commercial. I figure again, they are trying to sell me beer. Nope, they are selling hair-coloring product. So I guess my question is, women, does this work. Because when they are selling me beer, they pretty much use the same gimmicks. For men, those commercials work every time. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have upgraded a warranty on a bottle opener or signed for a Customer Rewards card at some retailer because a pretty girl with big boobs and a low cut shirt offered it to me. Do women looking seductively sexy make other women want to buy make-up? Wouldn’t a better commercial show a really hot couple and the guy is dotting on his wife as he applies the hair color for her. Then she tosses her hair all sexy and he swoops her up in his rippling arms, she wraps her arms around his neck and he pulls her closer into his chiseled chest. Or do four women with short booty shorts getting low really do it for your ladies to buy the new Shick razor for super smooth skin. Because let me tell you, if Sam Adams Beer uses four shirtless male models in Speedo’s frolicking on the beach, I WILL NOT buying Sam Adams ever again.

Last week I broke my glasses playing basketball. So I called up the eye center near my home to set up an appointment because they had a 2-for-1 special on glasses and I needed an eye exam as well. When I get there they have me fill out the new patient forms then after a few minutes the doctor is ready to see me. What amazes me after all the advancements we have made in making our wireless communications smaller over the past two decades, why can’t the same be said for the equipment used by optometrists. When it comes to cell phones we have been able to go from the Zach Morris phone to itty-bitty Bluetooth devices. Well, unless you’re Mexican, in which case your Bluetooth looks something like this.

It’s been four years since my last eye exam, and their instruments seem to have gotten more monstrous. As I entered the room, I wasn’t sure if I was getting an eye exam or if I should have looked over my will one last time as I was about to be a victim in a very bad snuff film. Luckily, the latter never came to fruition. Anyway, at one point during the exam Dr. Washington is testing me for color blindness. The test involves me covering up one eye and reading the numbers that I see, if I can see them, from an image such as the one on the left.

I figure it’s not big deal, I have been doing these for years so let’s get through this. I’m coasting along, “3, 17, 46, 72,” when I hit a snafu. The last one I can’t see anything. There I am, with my left eye covered, staring at image as absolute shock and horror takes over my face. I begin to panic, seriously debating if I should tell the truth, that in fact I cannot see anything, or making up a number and hope to God I get it right. Then I figure, at best, I have a 1:100 chance of guessing correctly, so I look at the doctor again. She sees the pained look on my face and starts to smile. Then that smile grew into a sadistic smirk filled glee, and I painfully admit that I cannot see anything. She bursts out laughing, “Good, you’re not supposed to see anything because there isn’t anything in that picture. You looked really worried there.”

What the fuck is that? That was cruel, and you could tell she was taking joy in my anguish. If the point of the test is to see if you can distinguish the numbers, why throw a trick in there to test my honesty. Needless to say, I was not amused.

Late last year, after Mrs. Salty Peters had lost her job and before I would eventually lose mine, she called Allstate, our insurance provider for our homes and our car, to attempt to find a way to save us some money and lower our premiums. The agent told her, and I quote, “There is nothing that I can do right now other than offer you less coverage to lower your premiums.” This isn’t an offer you fuck head. You don’t offer somebody less coverage. That’s like writing legislation for illegal aliens saying that a required enrollment in the military is an incentive. If it’s required, then it’s not an incentive. Idiots.

Anyway, I don’t handle the bills, Mrs. Salty Peters does it, I just give her my paycheck and she gives me my allowance. It works beautifully. Evidently, Allstate sends us three different billing statements for the three different insurance policies, and she accidentally missed one. So we received a letter in the mail from all state that read as follows.

AS YOUR ALLSTATE AGENT, I’M CONCERNED…

I’ve just learned that you were sent a Notice of Cancellation for Nonpayment of Premium on your Allstate Policy * ** ******. If you have already paid the Minimum Amount Due of $______, please disregard this letter. If you forgot to make your payment, consider this a friendly reminder that we must receive the Minimum Amount Due before 12:01 A.M. on 04/27/09 (the Cancel Date and Time stated on your Notice of Cancellation) in order to keep your insurance in force.

According to this letter, ass hat Agent Smith, Exclusive Agent is concerned that we missed a payment. Really Agent Smith, you are concerned? (Does anybody find it strange that our insurance agent has the same name as the main Agent in The Matrix Trilogy? I feel like I’m Neo and Mrs. Salty Peters is Trinity.) You didn’t realize that this was a very real possibility when we called you to get some help until we were back to working fulltime again? You’re only real option was to “offer” us less coverage. These insurance companies are a bunch of scam artists. I bet if we were leaving to a new insurer, then Agent Smith, Exclusive Asshole would be all over us offering more coverage at the same or lower rate. Seriously, couldn’t he have done that to make us feel better?

“I’m sorry I can’t lower the price, but what I can do is bump up your coverage at no additional cost for 6 months, so incase something does happen to you while you are out of a job, it won’t cost you as much. Then in six months we can look over your coverage and the cost again.”

If he had said that, then I would have felt like we were in “good hands.” I would have felt like we were in such good hands it’d be like getting a reach around from Agent Smith. Instead, Agent Smith fucked us over and left me with a bad feeling from Allstate. So I went to Allstate’s website to see if I could complain to President Palmer about this, when I see this commercial.

Without an Allstate agent, apparently I’m behind the 8-ball. With an Allstate agent, they are behind you ready to screw you with no Vaseline.

I think I’m going to State Farm because they are “like a good neighbor.” On second thought maybe not. My neighbors are an old lady built like Shrek’s wife and a young polish couple that holds a party every other week. My neighbors suck. I’m stuck with Allstate, aren’t I? FUCK!