I recently passed by a billboard that urged, "Don't let good food go bad!" Stricken to the core by this public-spirited message, I promptly abandoned my previous determination to let the rest of the food in my fridge rot. Thanks, "Food Safety Working Group"!
Speaking of idiotic ad campaigns, I can't help being struck by Bach homes' slogan, "Don't be a chicken: get Bach Bach Bach." Surely anyone could see that if you "get Bach Bach Bach," you ARE being a chicken? And if they didn't want the negative connotation of "chicken," why did they bring it up?
I really can't stand the phrase "little ol' me."
You know what would impress me? Someone who could go through her house selecting which lights she wanted on or off, and then flipping the corresponding light switches in a confident and unerring manner. 4+ years in this house, and it still takes me three tries to get the living room light on every morning.
Sam has sign language interpreters that come to help one of the students in his class at BYU. He was telling me they occasionally appear perplexed. "What were you talking about when they seemed confused?", I asked. "I think it was after I started talking about 'Peter and the Leviathan,'" he said.
It annoys me when a company's slogan purports to speak for its customers. For example, our health insurance website that calls itself "My Cigna," or loyalty programs called "My Rewards" or "My Way" or whatever. Don't put words in my mouth, especially inane/falsely perky phrases I would never actually use. It's condescending and makes me hate you.
Here's a parenting reality I never anticipated: the perpetual, subconscious awareness that one of your kids might throw up. It can lurk dormant for months at a time, but the second I hear a certain type of throat-clearing/cough coming from the kids' bedroom, or the moment someone starts crying for no reason at the dinner table, this awareness spurs me into instant supersonic action. (Sometimes to no purpose, but better safe than sorry!)
It's funny how quickly something cute (your kids singing songs from "The Sound of Music" around the house) can turn into a sort of never-ending nightmare.
From the great Thomas Sowell: "Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism."
