The Things You See In Big Box Stores When You Have To Spend Way Too Much Time In Them

These past few of weeks, I’ve been working on a lot of commercials. I actually like working on commercials, at least when compared with what it’s like to work on television shows. The food is better. The pay is better. The days are generally shorter and more sane. And as for the content? Well, I used to say that the commercials I worked on were generally better written and had higher production values than the TV shows, but that was before TV entered its current golden age, and TV commercial budgets started getting reduced to make way for social media content. Now, most of the TV shows I work on are at least pretty good, some of the commercials are still funny, and the social media content is …well, let’s just say it’s not directed at me (Why Instagram Stories? Why???). But generally, let’s face it: I’m shilling for corporate America, there’s just no way to make that better. 

One thing that really drives that home is spending a lot of time in that epicenters of consumerism, the big box store. Here are a few things I saw wandering out in these mundane-to-the-point-of-creepy settings that I found strange, disturbing, or just “Huh?”

What is the right occasion for these? Is it when you’re actually drinking alone (in which case, cocktail napkins?), or is it when you want to invite your friends over to laugh at you because you’re a cat lady who drinks alone? Or should the packaging just say, “A Fun Cry For Help”?

 

“What happened to the first six Odor Busters?” is a thing you might ask if you were trying to stay awake at 3:40 in the morning and you couldn’t tell that that was a Z. And because why are little deodorant grenades a product that you want to jazz up with a Z, like Starz, or cheez? 

I am afraid of whatever this is (and apparently I’m not the only one, because it no longer exists).

 

Is OXO the only size this child comes in?

 

You must obtain one of these to apply for the position of grandparent.

 

“Trempette” sounds so much classier than “dip,” but should dip even be classy?

 

Can’t imagine why these bolts of cloth are unpopular.

 

1) I thought Garanimals no longer existed now that all babies are born with fashion sense. 2) Please tell me you would not dress your kid in this unless you absolutely had no other option, or you were being ironic. And even then, no.

 

To be filed under “Things that should not exist.” (Mega Stuff is marshmallows — which should be said with the same degree of horror as Soylent Green is people.)

 

Wasn’t it just February?

 

The genius of marketing: selling the same rabbit as two different rabbits.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, America.