Observations of a Reluctant Commuter

So I’m on the subway, headed to work.

And the train is full of disgruntled commuters – including me. Because I’d rather be home in bed, still sleepin’ – independently wealthy with no need to face the world on anything less than my own terms; no need to be crammed into a subway train during morning rush hour, as though I didn’t deserve better.

So I look at the overhead ads, just to pass the time between one station and another. And I realize that I don’t worry about the state of my complexion as much as I should – or see enough movies, or explore enough career options, or drink enough pomegranate juice – which, according to this week’s advertisements, is the way to not only change my life, but to save it. But maybe that’s just me, not paying enough attention to what’s really important in this world.

But then there’s this ad – a photograph of a piece of toast, smothered in peanut-butter. And in the middle of that oh-so-familiar golden-brown spread, there is a peace sign – etched by a finger into the buttery goodness that was always a part of my life, a part that seemed forgotten or dismissed as somehow having been too-good-to-be-true over the past eight years – its ability to be smooth, crunchy or extra-crunchy, its traditional accompaniment with jelly notwithstanding. Some things just got lost in the fray.

But there it was, big as life. A nameless corporation, out there somewhere, selling peanut-butter with a peace sign. Not a flag-pin stuck in a toast-eater’s lapel, or a hawk proudly eyeing its hapless prey from atop a jar of Crunchy X-treme – not a word bespoken about how only aggression and a good ol’ fashioned war can satisfy the hunger of people the world over for democracy and freedom – not to mention peanut-butter.

Just a peace sign on a piece of toast.

They’re trying to appeal to me, I thought. The peanut-butter empire, with all of its attendant by-product producing sister companies, partner corporations, and wholly-owned subsidiaries – they’re coming after me.

And I thought there’s something changing in this world – for the better. Because someone at a marketing firm, who has an all-important, million-dollar-a-year peanut-butter producing client, just woke up to the fact that the way to woo me is to show me a peace-sign on a peanut-butter laden piece of toast.

I like that.

I think I’ll eat more peanut-butter from now on.

‘Cause they kinda had me at the concept of peace – on toast, etched in peanut-butter, or just plain in-your-face and unadorned. I'll take it any way I can get it.

Insomnia has me in its clutches tonight, so here I am, finding and now responding to your post on peanut butter...

And peace.

Perfect!

Thank you for your continuing eloquence...


K&R

:hug:

Resist.

it's the Zeitgeist, or someone in advertising realizes there's a market to be tapped. All the experts said no one would listen to politically oriented left leaning radio until someone realized that we're the majority. If alienating 18% means appealing to the remaining 82% the larger number gets the nod.
Unlike the Senate where a minority can hold the majority hostage, business caters to the bottom line or the highest number.
Newspapers that have given the Bush cartel a free ride, and in many instances acted as a propaganda organ, are dying. Newsrooms are cutting staff just to keep the presses running. TV News will suffer the same fate if they continue their assault on the majority.

???? Why the hell would anyone decide to eat more peanut butter and equate that with any substantive action for peace?

We need to do something about this, we need a tribunal or a committee to look into these ramblings of a madwoman and figure out just what the hell she's trying to pull over our eyes by juxtaposing peace to peanut butter - my God in heaven, the madness of it all!

Or maybe, we should just go get a Nutter Butter and shut the hell up.

You know how it is with those peanut farmers.

:rofl:

Or maybe you could buy a t-shirt.

or maybe you could buy a donovan album.

Or you could buy....

I rather enjoyed this, much like the handfuls of peanuts I've been eating every day over the past several days - it must be some kind of a peace conspiracy, I like those, as much as I like peanut butter and strawberry preserves with the crusts cut off!

Anyone can use a peace symbol. I've seen it used on propaganda for Young Americans for Freedom, the right-wing college group. I've seen it used in comic books in military bases (the Hulkbuster Base of General "Thunderbolt" Ross had its runways in peace symbol format). I've even seen it on Klansmen, who interpret "peace" as "stringing up all the n*****s."

You are tired, you are over-reacting, you admitted that you're stressed, and you're probably realizing that the much-promoted public transit puts you in close proximity with people you'd rather kill than stand next to. For hours on end. To go to a miserable-ass job, with the only expectation of a similar return trip at the end of a humiliating work day.

You are being used. Don't let them use you. Get a CD player and some batteries, ride the bus with a blindfold on, wrap your purse strap around your leg or arm so it can't be stolen, and ignore your environment. Mass transit is living hell. It's up to you to make it less so.

... the only reason I'm disgruntled on my way to work is because I'm a nighthawk, and HATE having to get up early. I have no desire to kill anyone standing next to me - in fact, I often get into conversations with total strangers during the ride, and enjoy the proximity of other people.

I LOVE my job; it is interesting, challenging, and fulfilling. And you have no way of knowing this, but the thought of worrying about one's purse being stolen on the Toronto subway is laughable.

I was struck by this ad, because if we peaceniks are being targeted by advertisers who want to sell their wares to large numbers of people, it means that "peace" is in - it means that we're in.

There's been a shift in thinking, and the fact that marketers are now trying to take advantage of it is a recognition that that shift is a reality.

Ride the subways. You might even survive. That is our reality.

Be glad you don't have to work in fear in an American company, or live with people for whom body odor (even artificial ones they spray on) are intolerable. You'd want to ride in a car of your own to avoid being driven mad by your fellow human animals.

Rode the subway - never saw the other passengers as animals, likely to drive me mad or otherwise.

I guess that's my reality.

Over-rated on toughness. Wanna see some badasses, visit mexico city!!! Do not try and drive there. They're car insurance is a baseball bat.

wouldn't think about it. Those who don't pay attention to anything as a rule but ads (and the drivel inserted between them when they are the broadcast version) may see a peace sign on toast and perhaps think about things, for a change...and I don't mean toast!

Were it only that easy. Nice piece Nance.

-Hoot

That is a big change. Someone is trying to make Peace, profitable?
Until now everyone knew you couldn't make a buck doing peace.

"War is good for the economy" they said.

No, you got peanut butter in my peace!

:hippie:

edit: brought to you by Reese's Peaces :-)

connecting hunger with war, and how if the world was just fed properly, peace might be attainable?

Maybe it's an ad for a world hunger organization? Peace through peanut butter?

My first thought wasn't that it was a peanut butter company ad.

And I hope mine comes from Jimmy Carter's land.

It may be a sign of change, true, but it may sucker me into endorsing policies and taking actions that further enrich Republicans at the taxpayer's expense.

Wind power is an example. Ever-solid Republican T. Boone Pickens has endorsed it. He wants the tax credits, the subsidies, and the valuable pollution credits that he can sell to big polluters. Of course, the fact that wind power doesn't work, doesn't cut carbon emissions, and is terribly expensive means nothing to Pickens. He wants us to buy it anyway, and he preys on our desire to make a better world to enrich himself at the public trough while knowing full well that he's providing us no real benefit for our tax dollars.

Don't believe me? Check this site: http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/faqs.html

That is why I am nervous when powerful interests start marketing products to me. A sign of change? Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we should buy the product being offered.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth