Hoses and Menus…
W H I N Y W E D N E S D A Y
I have two very good and legitimate complaints for today’s post. I think you’ll have no reservations in getting on board the grievance train with me. I’m sorry, did I just use a pun? Wait, what? No I didn’t.
HOSES
I went to Home Depot this morning to pick up a hose and sprinkler. Most of you are probably aware that our country is on fire and in the throes of a major drought, etc. Being the good earth citizen that I am, and having my own private well that I’m free to use without restriction, I decided to water the hell out of my lawn. Right now it looks like it might spontaneously combust. Since I’m trying to sell my home I thought I might do well to avoid any brush fires. I don’t think brush fires would add much to my curb appeal.
Anyway… Home Depot sells a variety of garden hoses. Every manufacturer states on their box, very clearly, that the hose is a “NO KINK” hose. The one I purchased is called “NeverKink” and promises “GUARANTEES not to kink or tangle.” This of course is a BIG, FAT, LIE!!! Not only does it tell you it won’t kink or tangle but it has the nerve to give you the “science” behind it. I bought a hose with “Apex Reflex Mesh” which as most of us know, is a “self straightening anti-kink technology.” And wouldn’t ya know, it’s made in the USA. That really makes me want to invest in our manufacturers, and by that I mean, I want to become a Canadian citizen.
In honor of the “Apex Reflex Mesh” I thought you would enjoy Duran Duran’s REFLEX.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhQNz2AszDIMENUS
MENUS
It seems every time my friends and I go to a restaurant they seat us and place an alcohol menu the size of the Encyclopedia Brittanica in the middle of the table. What happen to just including those beverages on the regular menu? Being the sensitive soul that I am, it got me thinking… If I were an alcoholic and I was trying to stay sober, this subtle and insidious practice would really upset me. If I were on a diet (…and when am I not on a diet?) and the restaurant put a plate of donuts in the middle of the table, I’d be pretty outraged. Sure, I’d probably have a few, but after that, I’d be pissed. I understand that they want to make money, but lately they’ve really been pushing the alcohol. Luckily, I don’t drink, so I’m not tempted, but for those who do, it seems sort of sneaky. People who want to drink can easily ask for a drink menu if they really want one. Maybe I’m dead wrong on this? I just know if I was trying to avoid alcohol I wouldn’t want it shoved in my face.
Anti-kink, no such thing 🙂
Yes, you did use a pun 🙂
Why bother even writing that on the box? It’s a joke. Maybe telling the consumer that it won’t tangle is even funnier?
Yes, I’m aware I wrote a stupid pun. : )
I have a post of puns coming soon just for you 😆
Please don’t feel the need to torture me, Harry. : D
Your experience with the “non-kinking” hose is relatively typical of products anymore. When you find something that actually delivers on the promises you read, you think you’ve hit the lottery. Instead of it being the norm, it is now cause for celebrating and texting.
As the economy has tightened companies have found a variety of inventive ways to continue to grow the bottom line. One is to pressure their employees to make add-on sales. Walk into a Sam’s Club and observe the pressure put on you to upgrade your membership as you check out. The lowly paid cashiers are required to sell so many “plus memberships” each day. They are counseled by management to insure they meet their sales goals. I know of one store where employees who failed to make their sales goals had a shaving cream pie shoved into their face while being photographed. If they consistently under-perform then they are terminated.
The same when buying a cup of coffee at Barnes & Nobles. You are asked if you would like any flavor? Then the salesperson will give a discourse on a particular type of cheesecake, or scone, or pastry…anything to bump up the sale.
It is stupid and wrong for companies to require this of their employees. Of course they couch it in terms that make it sound like they are increasing the customer’s satisfaction, but it is all about profits.
Great post…and one I obviously support. This is why I think it is essential for those of us who feel this way to turn the tide. Take our buying dollars to stores who have not succumbed to this level to make a profit. Let’s start companies with a different type of business model. Look at the Homeless Museum of Art as a whole new way of operating. That guy is my idol. At LifeRevelation we are looking for ways to take our company to the street…right to the people who need it the most.
Be encouraged!
I felt like Andy Rooney writing this post but I really do miss the days of the Ma and Pa shops when quality and customer care were the priority.
I hope your company does well, just in theory alone it should be an incredible success!
Have a great night!
Lisa
Thanks Lisa, I hope you eventually get some rain…we are starting to get less than 1/2 inch every other evening, not much, but better than nothing.
Be encouraged!
Nice rant tonight :0) I concur 110 percent!
Thanks, yeah, stuff like that bugs me — even though I know the trickery behind it. It always feels good to rant : )
damn scoundrels all of them …
I always like a good rant, as you know. 😉 I can’t share your vexation about the kinking hose, though, only because I’ve always lived in an apartment and have never had the need or opportunity to use or purchase a garden hose. However, if I did, I’m sure I would be as irked as you are by your experience. Fraud!
I never understood the whole separate drink menu either—is it a restaurant or a bar, for crying out loud? I realize that restaurants make a lot of money from the bar, but still, a drink menu with a table of contents seems a bit over the top.
Haha! A table of contents! Lol!
The hose thing is just completely stupid. On what planet would a 50 foot piece of tubing not get tangled? I notice they don’t print “no tangling” on packages of Christmas tree lights… Those hose people are up to no good.
Anti-Kink my eye sort of like detangling conditioner I bought that actually had my hair a damn rat’s nest.. no joke…as for the drink menu, I cut to the chase and say crown royal on the rocks.. solves that problem 🙂
That’s the way to do it, just refuse the menu and order your drink.
The hose thing is absurd. Why even suggest that it’s not gonna tangle or kink when everyone knows that’s a lie?
A kinking hose is enough to make someone lose their mind..that reminds me, I need a new hose.. my son ran over ours with the mower..
Make sure you get one with apex reflex mesh…. Only kidding! Haha!
I dont have grass so I don’t need a hose, so I’m good on that front 😛 although one could come in handy if I ever decided to wash my car myself, but when is that ever going to happen?
Usually where we live the resturants have the drinks menu already in the centre of the table, it’s not a huge book of drinks though usually just an A4 laminated folded sheet, but maybe that’s why there’s so many alcoholics in America, because of the resturant menu’s! :O Something needs to be done.
If you drink over here people might look at you with suspicion or judge you, but in England, drinking is a major sport. Let’s be honest, your entire island is alcoholic! hahah! I’ve never seen so much drinking in my life and at all hours of the day. Hey, I’ve even had to step over bodies on the side walk. Lol! I might have even stepped over you! You just don’t put a label on it like we do.
But you’re right, I think lately we’re pushing lunch time drinks like never before. Our economy sucks and everyone is walking around depressed so it doesn’t surprise me that our alcohol menus have turned into atlas sized books.
There’s only two types of alcohol over here, Good Alcohol and Cheap Alcohol. If you’re NOT drinking people will look at you with suspicion, I was drinking at 10am this morning, but hey, times just a number 😀
When I did telesales last year I used to take everyone to the pub for lunch and I’d pound as many vodkas as I could before we went back, then we had our round of drunk dialling and seeing who we could sell electric to while we were slightly merry haha. The good old days.
I rest my case. Lol!!!!
Those big Home-Depot-ish stores drive me nuts period. There’s way too many choices and it would tick me off if my hose kinked when it said it wouldn’t. I mean really, whatta ya gonna do — take it back?? As far as the drink menu thing, I’ve never noticed that until you mentioned it and it HAS gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Nice rant! 🙂
The Home Depot type stores REALLY bother me too. I’d rather go to the local family owned hardware store and give them the business.
The drink menu has become bigger than the actual menu and then, if that’s not enough, the waitress rambles on about all the great drinks they have at 11:00 am at California Pizza Kitchen. REALLY? It’s obvious that they’re pushing alcohol. Crazy.
Absolutely true! Well written post on a very real issue
Sometimes I just notice things that don’t make sense or that bother me and I have to mention them or at least make a joke about them! Ha!
What are you currently working on, just curious? : )
I’ve been a tornado! I’ve finally written one post, detailing a little. “Busy Bee, that’s me” http://wp.me/p2jE0a-i8. Just a little about the last 2 months 🙂
Anti-kink hoses occupy the same lie, that non-iron shirts make use of.
Exactly. I mean, I know what they advertise is a lie but why even bother writing such ridiculous claims on the box? It’s sort of funny, I think.
Put the pun down, and slowly back away and no one will be hurt.
(Thankfully, that is the extent of my punning abilities)
haha! Good one! I only like them when my friends do it on purpose with a disclaimer.
Oh, I like it. But nothing would stop me from firing the pun. I go at them like a bullet a gate.
You have a way with words, Colonialist, and your puns are always smart. Somehow I don’t mind those as much. : )
My take on the menu thing is that I like to have prompt service, and such menu left on the table or brought immediately gives that. Maybe it should be offered rather than presented? Anyway, if one needs to limit alcohol or food then keep away from places whose business it is to sell them! Hmmmm?
You make a good point. I guess since I don’t drink I don’t usually associate a restaurants with alcohol, just food, really. Here in the states they really PUSH the alcohol and I just don’t think that’s necessary.
Indeed. Anything pushed to excess gets my back up.
I thought this was titled “Hoes and Men” at first. And you worry you have problems reading things…
I didn’t realize there were so many fires everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fire. Wells would scare me. I would be afraid to fall down it. But I guess since your family are all tall you guys can easily climb to the bottom then get back out again.
As far as menus go, I think they’re pushy with the alcohol because no matter how bad the economy is, people will pay for booze. Silly really. Logic says the first thing you should cut out would be a slow poisonous death. Unless you’re really buying into how America will be back to a raccoon skin standard within a few years. Then you should drink up and die I guess.
I think people took me far too seriously with this post. I don’t think there are any “brush fires” in the Chicago suburbs. I was trying to be funny but obviously it all fell flat.
I really do think about alcoholics going to restaurants and wonder how they cope with the ‘in your face’ approach. I just noticed how big these drink menus have gotten – they’re ridiculous.
Remember when you lived on the east coast and how everything beyond Pittsburgh was some fantasy land where amazing things happened like cowboys, brush fires in the middle of the day, and dinosaur fights? Us Northeasterners still think that way.
The profit margins on drinks at restaurants (sounds like you were at a theme restaurant) are ridiculously higher than the food profit margin.
Just sayin…
Yeah, it’s obviously about money, I get that. But alcohol is an issue for lots of people. Isn’t there a way to make it available without doing the hard, in your face, sell?
Haha Lisa! I don’t know how I missed this “science post” on Apex Reflex Mesh! This actually sounds like what I had put in after an operation I had a couple of years ago!! And I think you’re right that a spontaneously combusting house would be harder to sell! LOL! And I don’t drink either but I do have a donut problem. Actually we’ve started ordering water whenever we go out and save a ton of money!
You know a hose is good when it’s backed up by anti-kink technology! Haha! Meanwhile, I have yet to meet a hose that didn’t kink and cut off my water supply! Haha! I think water is the way to go. We do the same thing.
Oh, that was a pun, and a tremendous one at that.
I have to agree with you about the drink menu thingy. They are absolutely unnecessary, especially for DRINKERS. I just happen to be one of those recovering alchies, so here’s what I think about it. When I went into a place, any place, expecting to drink, I ordered what I wanted regardless of what a menu said. If they didn’t have it I asked for the closet thing and was on my way to blackout-ville. I didn’t care.
Those menus are there for people who don’t drink. “See, we can actually make alcohol taste good!! Have a try!” They are getting sneakier too. I took the boys out to dinner the other day to a Mexican Restaurant here in town. While we were waiting on our food I picked up the “dessert” menu and noticed that every other page was back and forth, sweets, drinks, sweets, drinks. Doesn’t really seem fair.
“Sure, I’d probably have a few, but after that, I’d be pissed.” = my favorite laugh out loud line ever!
The drink menu is really sneaky and obnoxious. I’m glad you agree. Putting them in the dessert menu is especially crafty. It’s not fair. If it were food I’d be doomed.
Thank you for whining. I hate to whine alone.
Hey, sometimes it’s necessary. Glad you appreciate it.