ADVERTISING SEEMS TO BE EVERYWHERE
The other day, I was buying fruit at the
supermarket when I spotted an unusual
sticker on a banana. Not the usual "Dole"
brand sticker, but one that asked me a
question: "Got milk?"
I was rather surprised by this and almost
dropped my shopping basket. In all my
years of shopping, I've never been
questioned by a fruit.
I was a little puzzled, too. Was this some
kind of clever survey? Was I supposed to
write the answer on the fruit and hand it to
the checkout clerk? Or was I supposed to
mail the completed banana peel to Dole?
When I picked up a quart of milk, I
examined the carton closely, expecting to
see another question: "Got bananas?"
Or at least a question that would be more
appropriate for me: "Gone bananas?"
It finally occurred to me that the sticker on
the banana was an advertisement for milk.
And that made me mad. I don't want anyone
advertising on my bananas.
We need to pass some laws against this
type of advertising. If we let the banana
people get away with this, there's no telling
what kind of questions we'll see on our fruits:
Got beer? Got American Express? Got lice?
Advertising is creeping into every area of
our lives. Sports stadiums carry the names
of companies. Planes pull banners at the
beach. Newspapers and magazines contain
more ads than articles. It's amazing that no
one is advertising on our toilet paper.
All these ads make me wonder: Are the
"Dole" stickers really meant to advertise the
company that produced the fruits, or is this
some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy to
get everyone to vote for Elizabeth Dole?
If I were Al Gore, I'd immediately persuade
Attorney General Janet Reno to launch an
investigation into the funding behind these
stickers. And if I were Utah Sen. Orrin
Hatch, I'd immediately try to improve my
presidential chances by moving to Chile
and growing bananas. Hey, it's worth a try.
What really worries me is this: If Bob Dole is
somehow behind these stickers that
support his wife, it won't be long before we
see an apt message on our bananas:
"Got Viagra?"
Stickers are particularly annoying to me,
especially on fruit like plums and peaches
whose skin I eat. I hate having to always
remove them. But stickers have become a
necessary evil, because they usually display
a product code, which helps those poor
checkout clerks who have so much trouble
identifying fruits. Some cannot tell an apple
from a pineapple. But who can blame them?
They've been trained on the registers, but
they haven't been offered any type of fruit
training. You'd think someone at the store
would have at least given them a tour of the
produce section. You'd think someone
would have pointed out all the strange fruits.
Perhaps grocery clerks should be tested on
their fruit knowledge, with questions such as
this: Which of the following is not a fruit?
(A) Lychee (B) Guava (C) Ross Perot.
It's a tough question, I admit. But every good
grocery clerk should know that the answer is
C.
Ross Perot is not a fruit. He's a fruitcake.
Perhaps colleges should offer some
advanced courses on fruits: Fruit 101: How
to identify exotic fruits. Fruit 102: How to tell
if a fruit is ripe. Fruit 103: How to answer
surveys on fruits.
