There is a sad, little strip mall right by my house on 33rd South in Salt Lake City. This strip mall includes a Big Lots, two dollar stores (which is to say two separate dollar stores, not a $2 store), a thrift store and a smoke shop. That's it. Now they just need to add a Methadone clinic, a no cover strip club and place to sell your plasma to really up the status of the neighborhood.
Actually, last summer they sunk lower than any of those options. They opened a "you were stupid enough to get into crazy debt in the first place now take out a high interest loan against your car title and lose more money you don't have or we will break your thumbs" Check Cashing store. Is it a store? They offer no product and the only service they offer is borderline criminal. So "store" doesn't seem to fit.
The best part about these kind of places is the insultingly stupid commercials they have. They are asking you to make a serious financial commitment and selling it to you like it's Tickle Me Elmo. Stupid cartoons with an asinine jingle and three paragraphs of fine print that's displayed for two seconds.
Let's look quickly at my friend and Payson, Utah resident Gary Coleman. It's a tragically hilarious commercial. Note the legal fine print.
I actually respect the fact that he did this ad. He knows he's a punchline and he embraces it.
This reminded me of PSA's my high school's TV network (ah HTVS, good times) would run during the morning announcements. They would run commercials for the Selective Service that were circa 1984. Now this was in like 1995, before the 80's had any sort of nostalgic quality. At that time the whole decade was just fodder for our edgy sarcasm. Man we had it all figured out with our Doc Martins and flannels tied around our wastes. (By the way, i just derided sarcasm with more sarcasm. That's like crapping on a big pile of crap.)
Just so you know, this PSA is telling you to register for the draft. This makes me feel special because the selective service wants my name. After all, I don't want to break nobody's law (no, no, no). This sure is quick, easy and apparently it's the law. What fun!
2 comments:
I love that strip mall! Big Lots AND two all a dollars? Doesn't get better than that. But I grew up in the slums of West Jordan so it's all relative.
Lizzie, yes it does get better. Back in the day there was a Chuck E Cheeze's there. So as great as the variety of Thriftway and All A Dollar is, it would be better if you could go next door and watch a robotic hippo play the organ.
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