that old chinese proverb about buying shit (a throwback)

okay, so i thought commercialism had hit it’s high point. or low point, if you wanna view it that way. i got this vibe a few years ago, when i was at a place with bad food but cute staff (hooter’s), and the 32oz coke decided it was time for it to go. i went to help it out (so to speak), and looked in front of me to see an ad…and if that wasn’t bad enough, the agency who set these up right over the urinals had the slogan “bringing your message to a captive audience”. wonderful…

about a year ago, the heb near my place started handing you stuff with your receipt. like it wasn’t bad enough that the BACK of the receipts were solid ads, now you’d get this second piece of paper. occasionally, it’s a coupon. or a voucher for gas. but more often than not, it’s an ad. they just hand it to you, ’cause they KNOW you’ll look at it. and as long as you look at it, they’re halfway home.

but now they’ve gone TOO far. they’ve invaded something sacred. something they ought not touch. they have boldly gone where only ancient wisdom had gone before.

fortunes. yep, fortunes. those little pieces of wisdom that end a good (or bad) chinese meal. believe in ’em or not, they’re kinda like horoscopes – when they say what we wanna hear, we take ’em at their word. but when they DON’T, we say we don’t believe. but this offered no wisdom; it just said:

“Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.”