how perfectly swell: matthew prins (or matt prins, or thew, or...oh, you don't care) alone with his stupidity
commercials, part one:
those who live in wachovia land (virginia on down the eastern seaboard, i believe) have been pummeled with advertisements touting the bank's possible merger with first union. since most potential readers of prinsiana are midwesterners, allow me to describe:
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[a few guys are sitting in a coffeehouse making small talk.]
NON-WACHOVIA DUDE: hey, what's happening with that wachovia merger with first union?
WACHOVIA DUDE: [beat, then looks toward waitress] hey, ethel? when you expanded this place, did you change the recipe for your apple pie?
ETHEL: no. why would i?
[WACHOVIA DUDE looks pleased. all return to small talk.]
---
i like this ad for one and only one reason: what doesn't transpire after ethel's comment. i was taken aback the first time i saw this commercial, because this is what i was expecting:
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WACHOVIA DUDE: when you expanded this place, did you change the recipe for your apple pie?
ETHEL: no. why would i?
WACHOVIA DUDE: [turns to other dudes.] you see, this coffeehouse's expansion is just like wachovia's merger with first union. the coffeehouse expansion is a metaphor for our merger. we're just like the coffeehouse after it expanded. the expansion of the coffeehouse: it's just like us and first union when we merge.
[other DUDEs look extraordinarily interested.]
WACHOVIA DUDE: we're getting bigger, but that doesn't mean that we're going to stop serving people. our customer service is our recipe for success, and just like ethel's recipe for apple pie, it's never going to change.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.