If you’re invited into the home of a person you don’t know too well, there are certain things you know not to do. You don’t put your feet up on the coffee table, you don’t grab the remote, and you don’t immediately remove your pants. Or if you do, you don’t act like you’re introducing to the household the idea of immediately removing your pants upon entering.
So, can someone explain to me the behavior of Quiznos and Cold Stone Creamery?
More Top Picks Best Winter Boots With Cleats
Hey, I am not against capitalism, or sending a sandwich with a standard amount of meat down a heated conveyor belt toward a cash register, but I am against a company suddenly swarming a city–and putting its feet up without asking first.
Quiznos, Cold Stone, I don’t mean to pick on just you. Other viral franchises have already taken over tiny parts of my daily life, whether I frequent them or not.
I never thought I had emotions for Federal Express until DHL pushed its way into my life. And why do thoughts of Geico now cast a gloomy shadow over my special times with my State Farm rep?
But Quizzy and Stoney, there’s something about you two. Your presumptive attitudes can really rub a citizen the wrong way. So, one day, I don’t know you exist, and then the next day there are 8 million of you on my way to work. So what? My life is no better, and if anything, maybe a little worse, because I feel a tiny bit ashamed for not remembering what was there before you moved in.
Yet, you act like you think you’re brightening our drab lives in our formerly drab town with your presence. Do you expect us to throw a parade in your honor? Are we expected to throw our toasters out?
Yeah, that’s right, we’ve toasted sandwiches before, and we always kind of treated it as a normal event, hardly worthy of a comment, let alone a banner. Heck, Quizzy, my mother was toasting them for me before you were born, and she would have smacked me if I’d ever said to her, “Mmmm … toasty!”
And then there’s: “Hi, welcome to Cold Stone! Do you know how it works here?” Yeah, I know how it works here. You take an infinitesimal amount of candy you didn’t make and you mix it into ice cream and act like the Virgin Mary has appeared on the side of one of your waffle cones. Face it, Stoney, your true talent is figuring out a way to get people to pay $6 for a dish of ice cream.
But, the bright side: At least, I haven’t yet seen any “Here We Grow Again!” signs with these places’ logos on them. And I guess now they’re “part of the community,” and maybe they’ll feel obligated to give back and adopt a highway or let handymen and psychotherapists hang up fliers.
It’s certainly better than not being here at all, but acting like you are. Like the national alcohol companies who hire marketing firms to create an illusion of closeness and fraternity. Take Jim Beam’s billboard: “Chicago’s the ‘Second City’? Labels Mean Nothing. The Stuff Inside Matters Most.”
At least Miller treats us with enough respect to not even try to fool us into thinking it’s trying. MGD’s billboard: “Chicago Knows How to Handle the Cold.” We know and they know we know that it’s the same phrase they trot out in Boston, Toronto and Greenland.
But, Mr. Beam, you’re just plopping us down in a characterless bar next to an ad guy from Madison Aveue who, after we tell him where we’re from, keeps saying, “Oh, Chicago, great town,” while burping up his Steakhouse Beef Dip.
———-