What's Up With That?

Okay, ladies and germs, it's the second off-day of the week, we're all taking deep breaths and happily watching our blood pressure drop visibly after Coops failed to deliver the latest Sonny Gray.  Secure in the knowledge that we can at look forward to watching all those great young kids get debilitating injuries become the next thrilling generation of Yankee superstars.

To celebrate, may I present our quasi-annual "What's Up With That?" take on current TV ads—most of them espied during the daily Yankees Parade of Relievers.

(I gave it a hip, catchy title, the same way that the operators of Yankee Stadium feel obliged to play five minutes of head-busting heavy metal or hip-hop in between innings, in hopes of attracting the young people—and with about as much chance of success.)

To begin (and feel free to chime in):

Pizza insurance: What's up with that?  I can't believe it's a thing, but it's advertised constantly now, from one of the big, cardboard-pizza chains.

Are there really that many people who cannot successfully walk a pizza home from the parlor?

I understand what condition many chain-pizza consumers are in when they order.  But shouldn't they be too blissed out to get off the couch?  Isn't their biggest worry figuring out the tip for the poor delivery guy?

For that matter, just how many people are ordering pizza for whom it's a major loss if said pizza gets dropped on the way home?

If they really have so little money...shouldn't they NOT be ordering take-out pizza on a regular basis?  And aren't they splitting said pizza—and its cost!—with their friends?

So this is for people who set out to consume an entire pizza for themselves, but walk out to get it because it's probably the only time they'll set foot outside today, but are also too worried they won't make it back without dropping their pizza or having it smacked out of their hands?

Man, that's too sad to even imagine.

What's up with that?

Canadian whiskey—for Mom:  I'm referring, of course, to that add in which some hip-hop celebrity (I have no idea who) goes about his neighborhood showing off his taste by buying Crown Royal (in the classy purple felt bag) for his friends—but most of all for his MOM, with whom he shares a couple glasses.

First off:  we are blessed to live in a whiskey-rich environment.  There is no need to buy Canadian whiskey—even if you live in Canada.

Second: this is a real demographic?  Is it something Crown Royal is trying to create?

"Drink hard liquor with your Mom!  And afterwards, go out and hustle pool together!"  Is everyone now certifiably insane?

What's up with that?

Cars over coffee:  Car ads have been getting weirder and weirder for a long time...mostly because all cars look exactly alike, and it's becoming harder and harder to come up with a reason for choosing one over the other.

There's the ad where they leave a car in the middle of a pedestrian mall...and rather than seeing it thoroughly egged in two minutes, people ooh and ah over it—"Look!  A car!"

There's the one where the woman writes a letter to rough, dangerous streets about how much she likes driving over them now because she has...a car.  Like any other car.

And there's my favorite, in which the woman writes a letter to coffee about how she doesn't need it anymore because she's got a really exciting...car.  She even decides to rub this in by deliberately driving by a coffee shop and smirking at the hapless baristas there, who frown back because, you know, another customer has left them for...a car.

Granted, as you probably assumed long ago, I'm not someone who gets out much.  But what's up with this?

You like your car, so you don't need coffee?  How exactly does this track?  "Hey, got a great new bicycle!  So long, eclairs!"  "The subways are running great today!  Forget about that whole sex thing!"

How does your improved mode of transportation affect the need for other stimulants/pleasures in your life?

And why do you feel the need to gloat over it in front of the coffee servers?  Are you under the impression that they are somehow coffee's acolytes, or maybe it's blood brothers, or best buds?

Why, I bet in reality, after putting in a ten-hour shift at minimum wage, they HATE coffee worse than anybody.  They probably can't stand to smell or even look at coffee.  Stop driving by and smirking at them from your exciting new car!

What's up with that???