By Gail P. Smith
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign ~ Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind~Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?"
“The show must go on.”
For a while now I’ve been feeling bombarded with messages
from strangers and, stranger still, from inanimate objects. These are not imaginary
messages just running through my poor over-loaded brain. Nope, these are actually commands,
suggestions, exhortations and requests imploring me to DO things.
“March forward!”
I suspect it all began innocently enough back in the sixties
with this little guy: Remember him (the
shirt, not the model)?
Sometime during late sixties, early seventies he & his chirpy
little entreaty appeared on t-shirts. “Hmmmm,” thought some manager somewhere, “Surely
that phrase must be magical and will sell more pet rocks or cheese-whiz or
tires,” and just like that it became more popular than “Here’s your change,” as a farewell
from store clerks everywhere. Thus we all became accustomed to having strangers
telling us what kind of day to have just because we'd purchased some toilet paper.
As I’m sure you know, the phrase caught on, and has now become more
acceptable than “Bye-bye.” If you don’t say it when someone is exiting from a brunch
or a wedding or a car wash, you’re considered a Philistine unskilled in the
finer points modern etiquette.
Of course the next step was T-shirts telling us what do to
and some of them were NOT suggesting a nice day. I’ll have to take on T-shirt wisdom in a
different post.
“Inspire Yourself”
What I’m wondering today is when did this “slippery slope”
slide us down into deciding that we need the walls of our homes to “message” us. And our friends and family as well as to any
visitors who may wander over? Surely I’m
not the only one who has noticed this trend.
Behold:
AAAAHHHH!
Sure, it’s
a nice suggestion with pretty fonts, but who wants to come home to this
gigantic entreaty-way every day?
It's not that I don’t want all these fine things in my
LIFE,
I just don’t want them on my
walls, yelling at me every time I’m watching rubbish and eating junk food on
the couch. Too much pressure. If the words really wanted to help couldn't they have said, "Think carefully before buying an uncomfortable looking chair in hot pink?"
(By the way, I do
believe if you try to” laugh as much as you breathe,” it might cause some
serious health issues, not to mention what your family will think. I’m just
sayin'.)
“Take charge and mean
it”
In one room especially I do not care to be lectured. That would be the bathroom.
Let’s leave this kind of nagging where it belongs, with the
professionals—Moms.
Real moms don’t trust
their walls do the work for them, especially in the “
Flush” department.
Having said that I will confess to putting up my own code of conduct in the bathroom one summer when my children were young and trips to the pool were a daily occurrence as were wet towels on the floor:
“Hang up wet things,
That’s the pool rule
If you don’t
They’ll get mildewed”
(And now you know why I never attempt poetry. Bad poetry and all, it was effective.)
“Put a little strut
in it.”
I had been trying to ignore all these subtle,
subliminal, angst-inducing messages creeping into my subconscious, attempting to take a “live and let live” attitude, until last week when
that final straw dropped into my lap in the form of a cough drop wrapper.
Et tu, Halls?
Yes, indeed, even my cough drop was giving me orders and
making such personal comments as:
“Tough is your middle name.”
(I thought it was Lynn)“It’s yours for the taking.” (shoplifting?) “Elicit some ‘Wows’ today.” (just scary to think what I'd have to do for "Wows")
What could be the
reason for all these admonitions and advice? There it was right in the middle
of the wrapper:
“A PEP TALK IN EVERY
DROP.”
Oddly, this does, in some strange way, seem to make more
sense to me than the other preaching I’ve mentioned.
After all, if one was ill and taking the cough
drop for soothing cooling of the throat, wouldn’t some soothing comments for
the day be appropriate?
Nevertheless, I
really don’t want a cough drop that tells me what to do, do you?
It’s unseemly, given our brief acquaintance, the
fact that we hardly know each other, and that I’m going to be consuming the
product and pitching the comments.
After
I take a picture of them, of course.
Please tell me I’m not alone in my pursuit to stop this
madness where the entire world, including and especially inanimate objects, is now presuming to step in
where our friends and family leave off, to advise, suggest and cajole one and all on how to
live our life and conduct our business.
Please join
me in just
saying “No.” You don’t have to put it on the wall. In fact, I'd rather you didn't.
Oh, and don't forget to have a nice day.
“Turn ‘can do’ into ‘can
did!’ “
All the little quotes in the middle courtesy of Hall's cough drops' Pep Talks.
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