Apologies, but I have to interrupt my summer series on the top 10 stupid things I survived while growing up in Texas in order to let off some steam over a recent television advertising campaign obviously aimed at dumbening the human race as a part of some diabolical plot by some supervillain by the name of something reminiscent of Scorpio. What could possibly be the endgame of such a heinous effort? I’ll let you be the judge.
I’m referring, of course, to the ongoing “Do it every night” advertising campaign by […searching the internet for the brandname represented in said heinous commercials…] Cascade dishwashing soap. In case you’re enlightened enough to not watch television, or at least not commercials, allow me to fill you in on the premise of the campaign. A series of couples and individuals address the camera and repeat something akin to the phrase, “We do it every night.” Eventually, it is revealed that the topic at hand is running the dishwasher, and we all have a little chuckle.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some prude suggesting that we ball up our sexual frustrations and release them no more frequently than once a week…during their allotted and scheduled time. Not at all. I think the word play is cute. It’s Cascade’s attempt at using pop science to rationalize the environmental economy of running the dishwasher every night that honks me off. I mean, come on, seriously?
The argument goes something like this: “It takes four gazillion gallons of water to wash two plates, two cups, and a handful of silverware by hand in the sink. Only a monster would do something that environmentally rapacious. Instead, we at Cascade have invented a soap that allows you to clean those same dishes in your dishwasher using a fraction of the water (and some negligible amount of electricity that we’re sure isn’t worth measuring). So go ahead, do it every night. Run your dishwasher with a mere handful of dishes in it. It’s the only responsible thing to do. It’s the sexy thing to do. And you want to be sexy, don’t you?”
Okay, so I might have taken a few liberties in my interpretation of these commercials, but I think I stay true to the spirit. And I get it. Washing dishes under a running faucet is gonna waste a ton of water. Wasting water is bad. Don’t waste water. But somehow that means the only alternative is to run a mostly empty dishwasher?
Am I a bachelor with only one place setting of dishes and a lucky spatula? Am I so impatient that I can’t possibly let some dishes accumulate for a few days. Heaven forfend I pull a measuring cup from the dishwasher and hand wash it rather than run the machine in order to wash that same measuring cup so that I can use it to make pancakes. I might as well just measure the flour in my frickin’ hands like some sort of barbarian. Am I too stupid to figure out how to wash dishes in the sink without the tap running the whole time?
None of this even addresses the electricity used by the dishwasher and more importantly the hot water heater. The real question here should be whether to use hot water or cold. And what about the sanitize cycle? Shall I go on!? [repeats mantra to self: “calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean”]
I understand that Cascade only makes money when I run my dishwasher (while using their soap). Advertising is about trying to make money. That’s cool. I don’t even expect ads to be realistic or particularly truthful. I let go of those naiveties in my teen years when I deduced that wearing a bikini and drinking a Coors while skiing down a snow-covered slope might not be all that great in real life. At the same time, I concluded that Coors had effectively associated itself with cool, refreshing sexiness. But using this same logic with Cascade leaves me where? Am I to associate Cascade with increased sexual vigor? Is the motion of the water jets in my dishwasher supposed to increase my libido? Is Cascade saying they are the new Viagra?
Instead of dimming the lights and starting the record player, am I now supposed to start the dishwasher? “Hey baby, I set the delay on my rinse cycle. No spots, I promise.” It’s gonna take some time for me to adjust to this new reality. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think the wife just started the dishwasher…
At the Desk This Week
Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Back to the grind, so to speak. I’ve returned from my vacation on a pristine mountain lake, and life back home ain’t that bad. I’ve even pounded out some pretty solid words on the third season of the Green Ones. I still have another few scenes mapped out in my head that I haven’t had time to type yet. I should get those onto the screen next week. This final episode of season three is gonna be all about raising the stakes as much as possible. I need to push my characters harder than I’ve been pushing them. This episode is gonna be the eye-opening moment when my protags realize that they are up against more than they could have ever imagined. That realization will set the stage for a killer fourth season as well. I’m guessing the fifth season will still be do or die, but on a smaller and more personal scale again…the final victory that the rest of the world will never know about but was critical to continued human existence. But for now, I’m setting the stage for the massive multiverse showdown. And that’s always a good time.
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