Today I’m taking a break from my typical technology entries to bring you this sponsored message. Just about everything nowadays is sponsored. While watching sports broadcasts frequently everything is sponsored (we now bring you the highlight of the minute sponsored by Florida Orange Juice). Other things such as video games are now following this path of completely selling out (did you see me do that ollie over the Coke machine?). Advertisements have spread beyond the typical format of billboards and TV commercials and are now infecting our everyday lives.
Today during school I had an encounter with an ad I didn’t want to see. Check out the advertisement on the top right of this post. You can click on it to see a larger view. That ad was handed out with our lunches at school today. At the end of the lunch line the cashier was handing the flier style ad out to every student. When it came my turn in line I told the lunch lady that I did not want the ad. She responded telling me that it was mandatory and I had to take it. After receiving it I took it back to the lunch table, took a picture of it, and then threw it out.
What I want to know is why is that advertisement mandatory? Is the school making money off handing it out? If that’s the case I think I should get a reduction in the cost of my lunch. The school is profiting off of handing me that ad, so they should pass the savings on to me.
Now don’t think I’m completely against advertising. I understand people have to make money, but for some reason this one just hit a nerve. I think it’s due to the fact that this ad is so freaking pointless. The flier literally has no information, leaving me to ask about a million questions:
- When is this grand opening?
- Where in the world is “Sunset Strips”?
- Is “Sunset Strips” the name of the store or the meal?
- Why have a rooster in your logo if your name is “Sunset Strips”?
- Shouldn’t your name be “Sunrise Strips”?
- Is this another one of those crappy chicken chain stores that are infested with the Avian Bird Flu?
You see this advertisement tells me nothing other than chicken is served at this food place. Next time my school decides to hand out ads, I hope I at least know what the heck the ad is for.
5 Comments
You should tell the lunch lady to shove it up her ass and tell her it is mandatory that she does so. That would probably earn you a detention, though.
I honestly don’t think it’s the lunch lady’s fault though. This whole advertisement thing was probably thought up by the school board, and unfortunately the lunch lady just got stuck doing it. What would be a better solution is to go to the superintendent of the school district and hand her the advertisement.
I could you tell you counless stories about the shit I pulled because of the bitches that were running my high school’s cafeteria. Firstly, you go to a public high school. Therefore, it is probably illegal for her to force you to take it. Secondly, if she did force you to take it, I would had ripped it up. Then when you get escorted to der Führer you can then explain yourself to him and see what happens.
Threatening with legal action was always fun for me. Especially when I cited (in my case N.J.S.A codes they were violating they got quiet awfully quick).
But seriously, if this happened to me and she forced me to take the advert, I would had dropped the lunch tray causing it to spill all over the place and walked away.
And yes I’ve done it before–not because of an ad, but because a lunch was shitty and they refused to give me a refund. I tossed the entire tray, witht he food, over the tray cleaning station causing a huge mess. I was never accused, only because they couldn’t prove it, but needless to say, next time I had a crap meal, I was refunded :-).
Now to be honest, I didn’t push the issue of not taking it. The conversation mainly went down with me asking if I had to take it and the lunch lady saying yes. I’m sure if I would have walked away not taking the ad from the lunch lady’s hand she wouldn’t have chased me down. I took the ad willingly and I know it. I’m sure I could have caused a real scene easily, but to me it wasn’t worth it.