I was being my well-behaved, domesticated self the other day when I noticed something unusual.
Specifically, I was doing laundry. Particularly specifically, I was attempting to remove a combination of blood, motor oil, Rogaine and tapioca pudding from a pair of size 58 mauve polyester pants.
But I digress. Suffice it to say that I was happily humming the theme to “Rocky,” puttering about in the laundry room, when I reached for the industrial-size bottle of Tide that we recently picked up from the local warehouse store.
Printed in great big letters on the side was: “Now – with 40 ounces more vs. the 300 ounce size!”
This gave me pause. Do I need to look at the size of the container? I wondered. Could the people at Tide really be that absurd?
Of course, you know what I did next. I had to look. I had to. Me trying to avoid looking at the size of the container would be like a celibate monk trying to study the carpet pattern on Friday night at the local strip club.
And sure enough, there it was on the side of the container: 340 ounces.
Now, disregarding the fact that this is written using very poor English, who’s surprised? If the container says that it’s 40 ounces more than the 300-ounce size, then any peawit with a third-grade education is going to know how big the container is.
(Well, okay, maybe a sixth-grade education. We are talking about the American public education system, after all.)
And is this really a selling point? “Look! Our 340-ounce size is 40 ounces bigger than our 300-ounce size! Not like those cheap bastards at Cheer! Their 340-ounce container is only 36 ounces bigger than their 300-ounce container!”
Half of my brain is telling me that I should write to them with these observations, half of my brain is telling me to forget about it, and half of my brain is telling me that I seem to have forgotten everything I ever knew about fractions. I think I’m going to file it under “Inane: Observations” and leave it at that.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Tide doesn’t do sh*t for blood/10W-30/Rogaine/pudding stains.
This post is using a washboard over at humor-blogs.com.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
You do your own filing?
January 8th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Yes, but not well. I’m afraid I miscategorized “anaerobic” into “anorexic,” and it’s going to take hours to sort it all out.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Now you know why I left advertising.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Now if we were dealing with, say, Jack Daniels, this whole thing would have a different perspective.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
A little semen will get all that stuff out.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Heidi: the graphic design part of advertising is cool, but I’d be embarrassed to tell someone I wrote that copy.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:41 am
montucky: exactly! When dealing with alcoholic beverages, 340 ounces is not nearly enough. (And when you get that deep into the bottle, it’s doubtful that 300 + 40 = 340.)
January 9th, 2008 at 7:41 am
diesel: Semen, eh? Good to know. I’m almost afraid to ask how you know that…
January 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
What you really need is Shout. I hear it comes in a 2435.283974234ml size, which is up 2.8373198ml from their standard size.
And no, I did not just mash the keyboard to generate those numbers. How dare you accuse me of such a thing.
(Although in all honesty, to get blood out, you have to soak/wash it in cold water. The rest I can’t speak to. I think you’re boned on the oil.)
January 9th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Unfortunately, by using metric you have thrown me all out of whack. I’m not sure if that’s a good deal on Shout or not.
So: cold water and semen. Any other suggestions?
January 11th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Listen, you say all this now…
..but I don’t know HOW many times I’ve done my laundry and said:
“DAMMIT!! If I’d only had 40 more ounces of detergent!”
It will happen. Just you wait.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I simply must know:
what were you washing? And did your washing machine survive the experience?
January 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I think instead of trying to get the stains out, you should put more stain in. Just dip the pants in black dye. That will take care of it.
January 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
That is the wisest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Tell me: will it also fix the crunchiness?
January 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
pants aren’t supposed to be crunchy?