Not So Clever Marketing Strategies

Do you ever notice how they prepare food for commercials? It usually makes me ridiculously hungry. I understand it's not real food in the commercial. And I know in real life that the hamburger will not look that beautiful, nor will my fries be piled anywhere near that high, but I still want to go out and buy what they're trying to sell me. Once in college, my roommate and I stopped whatever we were doing and ran out immediately after a Burger King commercial for $1 chicken sandwiches. So it's not really difficult to convince me to eat something.

However, this strategy isn't true for cream cheese. In the ad, a couple was sharing a romantic breakfast that included a bagel with a layer of cream cheese at least an inch thick. I do like cream cheese, but I prefer to have my 8oz container last more than half a bagel. And then they were dipping strawberries in the cheese to feed to each other... as if anyone does that. Or could do that... unless you had an unripe, rock-hard strawberry to power through all of that cheese.

It's not surprising, since all advertising for peanut butter, jelly and even butter show these obscene amounts. Maybe it's a secret tactic to make you feel like "someone" is putting more butter on their bread than you so you don't feel guilty about licking the knife. But it didn't make me run out to the store and buy more cream cheese. Or even open my fridge and eat some. And I'm not easily swayed by advertisements.

So the cream cheese people might want to look up the geniuses behind the BK chicken sandwich ads.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

I've never moved far from home. So I didn't get what it meant to move, until now.

When friends moved away, I assumed that they were busy with their new lives, just as I was busy with mine. There were a few "how are you doing?" emails or even a phone call (maybe back in the '90s) and then within a short time, the space that person took up in my life usually filled with something else. Which sounds horrible, but it's pretty true.

When someone moves out of your life, you assume the best for them. Honestly, I think I was a little bit jealous of these friends moving into a cute new house with their cute new husband and all this fun new stuff. Meanwhile, I was in the same place doing the same things with the same people. Not to say that my forgetfulness was born out of jealousy, but it had a hand in there somehow.

Now that I've been the mover  movee one who moved, I get that life on the "other side" isn't exactly perfect. Yes, there's the shiny new home and the cute husband. There are lots of fun things to try and things to see. If you know where I live, then you know I'm not complaining about the weather or the lack of activities. But there is a large hole where people used to be.

Math being my minor, I feel compelled to share some here. Let's say you have 30 friends. Not Facebook friends, but actual friends you see in person. And you see a friend every day. Which means you have a few months with a day to yourself and in February you have to squeeze a few double dates in. Anyway... if one moves away, then you still have 29 friends. So you only have to figure out something to do with yourself one time a month. And how many people remember things they have to do monthly without a reminder on the calendar?

And that example is extremely flawed since you probably see more than 30 people with friends and family and work combined. And you don't see them once a month. So really how often do you forget to do things that occur only every 3 months (or more). Oil change? Hair appointment? Vacuum?

Ok, I get that it's easy to forget me. [insert sad song with sad puppy video]

So I have lots of super awesome friends that I will keep in contact with forever (you know who you are), so I wasn't worried about them. There were a few acquaintances that I kind of didn't mind if I didn't see them (I really hope you know you are and you're okay with this), so I wasn't worried about them either. But it was the friends that I really liked in the middle that I'm most sad about. Was I a bad friend? 

It's like having a dopey ex-boyfriend (you know who you are). You want him to call, but not really. You don't want to talk, just to see that he called and that he needs you. And that you're too busy and awesome to answer the phone. When in reality, you're watching TV and eating ramen, but it's still too hard to answer the phone. [Note: ramen is something we like to go out and eat in a restaurant, so I would be eating chips at home, but you get the point.] I'm hoping that someday I won't be home eating ramen chips, but right now I am. So someone should really be calling me. Or should I be calling them? Should I continue relationships that may have naturally terminated?

I consider myself outgoing. Sometimes socially awkward, but I like talking to people. So meeting people isn't a problem. If you talk to me, I will say that "friendships are coming along." And they are. It's just building up a network of friends took me 30 years. So... I can't expect to have the same thing overnight.

I made some awesome friends at college. However, I forgot that everyone in college is basically out to make new friends and has lots of time on their hands (if you are in college, you aren't really "busy," I promise that you'll realize that Facebook and TV and sleeping and talking about the opposite sex took up most of the time you felt you were too busy to study). In real life, people already have their network, and you really have to fit perfectly to get into an established one.

Since I'm extremely funny and bring great food to parties, I'm a shoe-in. But how do I find a new friend?

Having an extensive network of high school friends, when I got to college I didn't feel "needy" about making new ones. My old ones were just a (super awesome) road-trip away (in my illegal car). So I still have a great network of old friends, but they aren't really available in a awesome road trip, unless I learn how to speed-kayak. The point being, I feel more socially "needy." Every new encounter brings those creepy questions in my head "is this a friend?" "could she really like me or is she being nice?" "is it too soon to ask myself over for dinner?" I feel like before I could be picky about my friends. And here, I worry that I might be trying too hard. And no one wants a new needy friend.

But I know I'm only "needy" for a short time. So the solid friends will stay, the fickle ones will fade away and I'll get some new friends to fill in where the others left. So, you can call me to tell me that we're still friends and that you're wondering how I'm doing. But I'll be too busy with my new friends to answer. Or maybe all those chips mean I can't get to the phone fast enough.

It's All in the Name

You would think it wouldn't take a terribly long time to find an open domain name. Apparently I'm not that creative, and all my ideas were taken. However, all but one of the taken names had posts from 2005 and had not been updated since the original month of writing.

Perhaps that's a bad sign for my fledgling project.

I really just wanted to quickly start writing, but the whole domain name thing took 30 minutes. During which I probably should have been doing something more important, but not as exciting, like the grocery list.

Perhaps it is because my life seems pretty ordinary that I think I have the need to write about it. Like the world needs one more mommy blogger. I don't even have a special hook like living on a farm or homeschooling my 15 children while baking organically . Whenever I read a book, I think "I could do this, I'm funny too" and then when I start writing, the stories aren't as funny anymore. Maybe it's because I start to narrate my stories like David Sedaris. Then everything is hilarious.

So, either my stories aren't funny at all, or I need practice writing to make them seem funnier.

My ego is telling me that I should practice writing. At least this way I can hope to be discovered and write a book and become rich. More than likely, I'll have a nice record of the things that happen in my life. Hopefully I can make it for more than a month before taking up a perfectly good domain name with my dormant blog.

T