What the Fuck?

What's up with that genre of commercials where someone is yelling at or talking to a cleaning product or appliance?

I mean, what the hell?

Have I ever lined up vacuum cleaners and dusptans and brooms and given them a "cleaning peptalk?"

Have you?

It's a moronic sell. Or maybe it's set entirely in "TV LAND" where floors actually *gleam* after a mop is passed over them and gravy dribbles out of the gravyboat just so on the slices of turkey or mashed potatoes... where people hold team-confidence building meetings with their cleaning supplies before those "Oh, shit, my place is a hellhole, I have to clean x, y and z before I'm a passable human being," cleaning binges?

Well, I, for one, have never lined my dustbuster (Shark, actually), my Eureka, and my broom and dustpan up and yelled at them. I've never lined my Tilex Soap Scum, Tilex Mildew, and No Scrub up and threatened them with the Scrubbing Bubbles (Although, if that scenario played out, I think the Scrubbing Bubbles might win, because I have VERY FOND MEMORIES of the Scrubbing Bubble Squad... but I digress...)

Give me a character. Mister Clean? For a fresh clean scent. Comet? That shit's tough. I don't know why I think that, but it is. Scrubbing Bubbles? AWE-SOME, I love the bubbles just scrub on through all that soap scum, like in the animations! Hell, even that chicken-mascotted cleaner that my mom buys... The really old one... like from the '20s, whose slogan is "Hasn't Scratched Yet! Bon Ami! That's what it is. Bon Ami Cleaner. (From 120 Years Ago) - because I know there's a Cartoon Chicken Involved, it gets GREAT product recognition from me! (In fact, as soon as my current can of Comet is out (which will be a while, because I fucking HATE Cometing out the sink.) I'm going to track down Bon Ami...

I guess the point of all this ramble is - the absolutely absurd, but absurd like in a "that's retarded, someone would NEVER do that" commercials (Like when you argue with your In-Laws about a certain Fabric Starch, or like when someone in a commercial makes that head shake and mini-O-face after they bite into like a fucking Baloney Sandwich with Mustard) annoy me and don't stick... but the crazy, adorable, and/or cool sort of commercials (normally involving a talking Character who is indearing in its own way [and I will elect the Baskin' Robbins Talking Spoon as most ADORABLE Brand Symbol EVER]) stick with me.

So I guess my message is this: Team meeting with your cleaning supplies? Fits in with the stupidly absurd. HOWEVER, if, say, SWIFFER (the commercial responsible [I think?] for starting this rant) had a Mascot, I'd remember the commercial and have fond Brand recognition. A nifty character, like a Racoon that mopped up messes with its tail? I'd TOTALLY remember that. Or, like if the mascot was a skunk named Sniffy, like my stuffed animal Skunk named Sniffy that I accidentally left at the Ellicott City Depot of the B&O Rail Road in 1984....

...

...

(OH, GOD, WHYYY! SNIFFY!?! WHERE DID YOU GO!? I MISS YOU SO MUCH, SNIFFY!) and his last name was Swiffer, and he was "Sniffy Swiffer?" (No one is ever going to make a skunk into a cleaning-supply mascot.)

If the Mascot for Swiffer was an unscented Mascot, with a bushy tail like a Squirrel...Swiffy Squirrel...well, we just figured out his name, didn't we?, then I would totally remember the Swiffer Commercial. Or whatever it was for. Some mop. Probably Swiffer?

I mean who advertizes mops anymore, right?

Stupid Marshmallows.

So, this year, I have noticed a trend:

Home-made Marshmallows are in vogue. And as I was invited to a party at The Brewer Patriot's ,and he asked me to bring "Something sweet with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever," I obliged.

And I made homemade Peppermint Marshmallows, that were SUPPOSED to have a red swirl of coloring going through them, just like the ones I saw on "Faggy Deen and Jamie Deen Make 'O Faces' 'Round the Country."

Some observations:

1) Homemade Marshmallows are a PAIN IN THE ASS. They're very sticky.
2) Even though I followed the recipe, a teaspoon full of Peppermint Extract is TOO MUCH.
3) Powdered Sugar tastes bad in excessive quantities.
4) The Whisk attachment of a Stand Mixer mixes far to efficiently. My Marshmallows are pink.

So, I'm bringing a plate of Crappy, Uber-Minty Pink Marshmallows to the party. I guess I should have thought the idea through a little more fully, but by the time I realized it was a bad idea, I had coated every surface in my kitchen with powdered sugar, and was sure the KitchenAid was going to catch on fire from whipping the Marsh into Mallow...and I just didn't care anymore. Then, I had the great idea of sprinkinling on Turtle-Shaped Sprinkles (a Present Courtesy of Jess Cohen) over the Marshmallows. You know when you have a bad idea that makes something worse? That was one of them.

So, Friends, I hope TBP has a lot of Cocoa in his house for his party. Maybe you can throw the 'Mallows into some Eggnog.

We'll probably end up feeding them all to Franklin who will have Minty Fresh Farts for the next three weeks... Pictures will be posted soon.

I swear I didn't do this to be pretentious...

"If the conditions change, different types of individuals may now survive or reproduce better and become "naturally selected," with the result that the population undergoes evolutionary change. A classic example is the development of industrial melanism in British Moths: darker moth individuals became relatively commoner than paler individuals as the environment became dirtier during the 19th century, because dark moths resting on a dark, dirty tree were more likely than contrasting pale moths to escape the attention of predators. Much as the Industrial Revolution changed the environment for moths, farming changed the environment for plants."

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

By Jared Diamond.

Now:

This is the game:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog
4. Name of the book and the author
5. Tag three people

I tag all of you. GO! GO FORTH AND BLOG!