Episode 77: Tip for Panera

Panera is one of my favorite places to eat, mostly because I don't ever feel sick after eating there. They used to play classical music too, which made me feel mature and sophisticated, as opposed to all those other places with TVs everywhere and pop music blaring. In any case, I even used to like talking to the people who worked at my favorite Panera, which is a big step for me. I don't even like talking to people I know. Everything was going so well for a while. I felt like Panera was really helping me develop my social interaction skills.

That all changed when someone at Panera decided it would be a good idea to add a question to every credit card transaction. "Would you like to add a tip?"

Wait, what?!

Don't we usually add tips after service has been rendered? How can you ask me to leave a tip before I know how good the service will be? What if I leave a tip and I get terrible service? What if I don't leave a tip and I get exceptional service?

Isn't this actually more like extortion?

Hmm, just a second...Siri, what does extortion mean?

...

Yep, it's just like that. It is just like a shakedown. Do you want good service or bad service? Do you want us to get your order right, or screw it all up? Oh, we'll take good care of you, for a price.

I panic and just hit NO if I ever actually have to order at the counter, because hitting YES leads to a math question, and I'm terrible at math. Thankfully my favorite Panera also has kiosks where I can order without ever having to talk to anyone, so I can avoid the whole awkward exchange. This has set my social interaction development way back. Why, Panera, why?

Here's a tip for you, Panera. Rather than asking us to tip before we get our food, why don't you just raise the prices and pay your employees a bit more? Why don't you tip your employees? Or just keep asking that awkward question so everyone feels uncomfortable at the end of every transaction.

Episode 74: What Color is Your Soap?

Back in the day, whichever day that actually was, advertising made some sort of sense.  People had useful products to sell, and they wanted to tell people all about the useful features of their useful products.  Today, I had to buy soap for my dishwasher.  In the soap-for-dishwashers isle I found a dizzying array of options.  Oddly enough, most of the different options were actually from the same brand.  There was soap that was 6 x’s the power, and soap that was 8 x’s the power, and even soap that was 10 x’s the power! Okay, is this some sort of internal one-upmanship at the dishwasher soap factory?  Why wouldn’t they just sell the best soap they had? Maybe they are improving their soap so fast they cannot sell the weak stuff before the stronger stuff comes out. At least they are still trying to appeal to my desire to clean things, which makes sense if you are selling soap.  This is a concept apparently lost on the carwash people.

A few days ago I actually paid attention to the various benefits of the different car wash levels.  At first, things made sense.  The levels started with Good, then moved on up to Better, and then on again to Best, and finally on to Supreme, which did make me wonder how we differentiate among superlatives, but I could understand the car people clearly thought Supreme was better than Best.  The obvious question then is what makes a carwash Supreme.  Tricolored foam.  Yep, that is what bumps your carwash up another rung on the ladder of superlatives.  It’s not foam that is 10x’s the power of lesser foam. It’s not even 6x’s the power.  It’s just multicolored.  Okay, I realize the mushy-brained kooks of advertising think we are all very gullible and not very bright, but it’s like they aren’t even trying anymore. “Here, buy this soap because it is colorful, and won’t all those colors look fun when you are washing stuff?” 

Sure, companies have been using the old lets-differentiate-ourselves-from-our-competitors-with-some-sort-of trivial-detail-that-is-totally-unrelated-to-our-product-or-its-use trick since mushy-brained kooks took over the marketing racket, but they were way more crafty and less obvious about it.  I mean, they would take the same old thing, the thing maybe a few other people were also making, wrap it in sexy new packaging and say how much better it was than some other version of the exact same thing in less sexy packaging.  It used to be about the actual product, or at least pretend to be about the product.  

Has it really come to this?  They don’t even bother to make up something about multicolored foam being more effective.  Have our minds really been turned so mushy we will choose a car wash based on the color of the foam it uses? I, for one, will not!  I bought the Supreme because it was better than the Best, whatever that means, and that is why the mushy-brained kooks get paid the big dollars.

Episode 51: Don’t Take Drugs Seriously

Levsin is an antispasmodic medication given to help treat various stomach, intestinal, and urinary tract disorders that involve cramps, colic, or other painful muscle contractions. Because Levsin has a drying effect, it may also be used to dry a runny nose or to dry excess secretions before anesthesia is administered...If you take Levsin for a stomach disorder, you may also need to take antacid medication. However, antacids make Levsin more difficult for the body to absorb...Side effects may include…confusion, constipation, decreased sweating…drowsiness…excitement…impotence, inability to urinate, insomnia….

You are probably wondering just what is going on so far in this week’s month’s column. Be assured I have not gone any further insane, at least not that I noticed, which raises the question of whether I would notice if I had anyway. In any case, my sanity is not the reason we are here.

We are here because I am worried about the collective sanity of the world in which we all live. You see, the excerpts above were taken directly from a www.drugs.com page about NuLev. Why do I care about NeLev you may now ask…go ahead, ask away.

Well, I am glad you asked. I have no real interest in NuLev other than the fact that it is stamped on a small rubbery colon now sitting on my desk looking at me through yellow eyes and smiling at me with its one vampire-like tooth, a snake-like tongue, and a very dapper little red bowtie.

It is a souvenir from a surgery I had many years ago, and another genius idea from the mushy-brained kooks in some pharmaceutical company’s basement (I would look up which company, but you know about my budgetary restrictions).

I thought the rubber colon was hilarious on its own, but then I read the drug description and my brain almost turned entirely inside-out. Who wants to take a drug that can treat both your colon and your runny nose?

Am I the only one confused about how you need to take antacid medication with this medication, but the antacid medication makes this medication not work right so you have to keep taking more and more antacid and more and more of this medication?

As with any drug, however, my favorite part is the list of possible side effects. I am trying to picture what it would look like to be an excited drowsy insomniac who can’t sweat. If you think ADD is bad, try taking this medication.

That wasn’t even what I was going to write about, but it just jumped in and took right over and that’s all the time we have left.

Please tune in again next week month time when we discuss what it was I meant to discuss this time before I was hijacked by a rubber colon.

By the way, in a completely and totally unrelated coincidence, tomorrow (or today, or March 5th, depending on when you are reading this) is Dress in Blue Day.

Episode 62: The System is Down

“Every bite is pure joy.”  That little tidbit of knowledge came from my McDonalds bag today. It also informed me the reason I “get so much pleasure out of a McDonald’s hamburger,” is because McDonalds uses 100% pure beef.  It didn’t really do me any good today with my slightly warm dried out crispy chicken sandwich, but it did make me feel better about the last time I enjoyed a somewhat warm paper-thin slice of beef from them.  I know it sounds like I’m complaining, but Im…(okay, my iPhone can automatically insert those stupid apostrophes whenever I type “Im” so why can’t my computer?  My phone is now smarter than my computer.)…Where was I? Ah yes, I’m really not complaining about the food at McDonalds.  I knew what I was getting into.  If I wanted real food I would have gone to a real restaurant or made some myself.  What I wanted was to get some food without having to engage much of my brain or get out of my car.  I did get that, almost.  You see, the McDonalds I visited to day changed the system. 

It would seem I am not so good with adjusting quickly to new systems.  There were real people outside taking orders and payment.  It wasn’t so bad giving my order to a real person.  Ive…(There again, my phone is smarter than my computer, stupid computer. Im leaving it that way just out of spite.)…given my order to real people before.  It shouldn’t have been a big deal to give my money to a person either, I do that all the time.  What confused the system is the person taking the money was outside, all the way outside, not just holding an appendage out a window.  Well, when she gave me my change and said, “Have a nice day,” or something of the sort, I thanked her and drove off.  Shortly thereafter I realized even though she was a person and was my second interaction at the drive-through, she was not, in fact, the person who handed out the food.  The person at the window handing out the food knew this and was watching from the little window as I pulled over, backed up, got out of my car, and went inside to get my food.  That whole system broke down.  I had to do one of the very things I wanted to avoid.  Don’t they know the whole reason I go through the drive-through is because I want to avoid people and physical exertion?  I guess I just need to pay more attention, especially when things start changing. 

Paying attention is how I came across the very informative messages on my McDonald’s bag.  I always wondered why I got so much pleasure out of a poor excuse for a hamburger, and now I know.  We should all pay attention to the message printed on shopping bags, receipts, and other such things because that is how we find out what we should like, what we do like, and why we do like it.  Wherever would we be without the help of the mushy-brained kooks writing helpful message all over everything?

Episode 57: Hospitals and Cars

I noticed a new billboard for a hospital as I was texting and eating and singing along to the radio and yelling at all the other drivers who don’t know how to drive.

Does anyone else remember when billboards used to be the only real distraction on the highways? Driving used to be fun…because the radio didn’t really get louder than the road noise or the wind through the open windows, which had to be open because the AC didn’t really work, and eating was something you did around a table in a house with walls to which the telephones were attached. Ah the good old days.

Anyway, this billboard proclaimed that the hospital’s ER was “Always open.” Um, isn’t that pretty much like McDonalds putting up a big billboard saying, “We serve food?” (Without the question mark of course, but grammatical rules being what they are I have to include it within the quotes even though it is not actually part of the quote. Although, given the quality of fast food, it could actually also be presented as a valid question.)  Aren’t ERs supposed to be open all the time?

“Oh Timmy, I am sorry you got your leg gnawed off by a rabid honey badger that somehow hopped a boat from Australia, or from wherever it is rabid honey badgers come, but the ER is closed, so you are just going to have to writhe around there on the stoop until it opens again, and then you are number 5 in line after all the ambulances already waiting here.”

Maybe that billboard was actually written by an Eastern European mushy-brained kook. Over there the ERs may or may not be open at night and there may or may not actually be doctors there even if they are open. And if they are open and there are doctors there who feel like helping you and have the right equipment to do so, you are very likely to be paraded around naked in front of everyone else, which would be embarrassing if every other patient didn’t get the same privilege. Those crazy Europeans and their lack of privacy concerns; their doctors may not be as concerned about helping people in the middle of the night, or about making sure their patients are clothed, but they make some pretty nice cars, speaking of which, the British have a very entertaining car show called Top Gear. Those of you who like cars will likely find it more entertaining, but everyone can appreciate the ridiculous stunts and shenanigans the three hosts undertake.

Episode 54: I Just Saved $45.02

That’s right, I just saved $45.02! How, how could you too save $45.02? I am sure that question is picking at your brain like the woodpecker that insists on terrorizing a certain corner of my house with his rat-tat-tat-tatting all the time. Well, it is thanks to another brilliant mushy-brained kook strategy, of course.

You see, I had to spend $50 (on $95.02 worth of merchandise it would seem) in order to save that $45.02, but really that’s like I only spent about $5 right, what with my savings? Math has never been my strong suit, so I am a little fuzzy on that part. In any case, the lady manning the register (Now that’s an interesting complication to our fair language isn’t it? I guess she would have to be “womanning” the register. I guess to be politically correct she would have to “person” the register. I would have used “people,” but it would be tiny people indeed who could “people” a cash register. Maybe that is exactly how cash registers really work. Sure there is all this talk about computers and circuit boards and nanotechnology and all that, but what if all that stuff is really run by scads of tiny people? Just something to ponder, along with the thought that our language only makes sense until you try to use it.) was very happy to make sure I knew how much money I saved by spending money at that store.

What a great way to get people to save their money. How exciting! It makes me feel very fiscally responsible. I am going to try to save lots more money now that I know how to do it. In no time at all I am sure I can save up enough money to buy that motorcycle. All I have to do is buy more stuff on sale. That Dave Ramsey guy and all his “don’t buy that” attitude, what does he know? I have the receipts to prove how much money I saved…all I have to do now is find out where they are keeping it. I better keep all my receipts so I have documentation about my balance. I am sure they are honest, but one can never be too careful.

This May Reduce the Risk of Everything