A Little of This; A Little of That

Arby’s is running one of the lamest promotions ever. Their combo meals are priced at $5.01, and they’re distributing coupons good for 1¢ off. The accompanying tagline is “Worth Every Cent!” So…your food is worth the one penny the coupon covers? The coupon that’s not redeemable for cash? Doesn’t that technically make the food worthless? Too often the 2 A.M. brilliant marketing hook shrivels and dies in the harsh light of an 8 A.M. management meeting. This should have been one of those times.

I’d like to meet the person in charge of programming the music for our “Local on the 8s” Weather Channel segments. While most go for muted, stately orchestral pieces, our guy (it has to be a guy) chooses tracks from Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, and Joe Satriani. Not only am I sure it’s a dude picking these out, he has to be a Gen X-er, because those are all 80s guitar gods. I keep hoping for some Queensryche to underscore our Doppler.

I’m in the process of paying off the debt incurred during eighteen months of unemployment, and it’s kind of nerve-wracking, especially when dealing with credit card companies. Their license to anally rape their customers expires next February, so calling them is like sticking a finger in the piranha tank to test the water temperature. You barely get your account number out before they’re peppering you with questions about current contact information, place of employment, next of kin, aliases you might be using, message boards you read, and your Twitter handle. I dutifully gave over all of that at first, but then I realized Hey…why do they need all this? We have one relationship – fiduciary – and that’s coming to an end with this call (I’m paying them, not declaring bankruptcy, just to make that clear). With that insight, I’ve decided to totally fuck with them. I’m hoping the conversation will go like this:

“Thank you for calling Ben Dover & Smyle. How can I help you?”
“Hi. I’m calling to pay off my balance. My account number is [digits here].”
“Okay. And is your address still [blah blah blah]?”
“Well, sort of. I’m living in a rusted-out Mini-Winnie in the field behind the place. But Dave, the owner, throws my mail in the recycle bin instead of the garbage, so I can still read any letters you send me since they’re not covered in his secret sauce. That’s not a euphemism, by the way; Dave makes his living by entering barbecue chicken contests across the South.”
“Oooooo…kay. And how about a phone number?”
“I’m using Dave’s phone right now. He’s in Tuscaloosa until Thursday, so I forced my way into his wife’s back door. That’s not a euphemism, by the way; she has her own room off the deck, and the sliding door doesn’t latch right ever since the trailer slipped off the masonry block and threw the whole frame off plumb.”
“Where are you currently employed?”
“I’m in a band called Chuck U. Farley and the Horse He Rode in on. That is a euphemism, by the way. We do techno remixes of Barry Manilow songs. I play the banjo.”
[stunned silence]
“It’s a niche market.”
“Uh…anything steadier? Maybe with an address?”
“There’s the clinic where I sign up for all the drug trials. I try to stick to ones for new pills because a doctor examines you for those, and that’s like having insurance, you know? Sometimes I sign up for three or four at the same time because it’s an easy hundred bucks a month. I used to sell blood, too, but I can’t anymore because my liver’s failing from all the pills. On the other hand, my sperm count is way up. Doesn’t really help me, though. Since I stopped drinking, I‘ve noticed that there aren’t any pretty women at the bar anymore.”
“Uh…”
“Can we hurry this up? I’ve got a Bat Mitzvah in an hour and still need to tune my banjo for I Write the Songs. Did you know Barry didn’t write that? That’s what college folk and Alanis Morissette would call “irony.” I used to not know that. I think these pills are making me smarter.”