An Inconvenient Name

I was thinking about writing a really positive, uplifting post tonight. But I'm sick. I think I've got bird flu or some kind of peanut butter SARS or whatever the news is telling me about. So that means another grumpy old man post.

I'd like to slap the man (or woman) who came up with the term 'global warming'. Not the person who came up with the actual concept, because that's pretty brilliant. I'm by no means a crunchy granola hippie, but I do believe in the concept. I made it about halfway through Al Gore's movie before slipping into a wine-induced coma. That was a couple years ago, so I don't really remember much about the movie. My logic is that if you do enough bad stuff for long enough, then bad things will probably happen. So I'm not mad at the people who developed the concept. My beef is with the term namer. Unless of course it's the same person. Then I wouldn't know what to do. I'm torn like an old sweater. 

So here's my beef with the term 'global warming'. It's unseasonably cold in Charlotte (check local listings). And I think it's pretty damn cold everywhere else too. So now every time it's really freaking cold I have to deal with two things: 1. The fact that it's really freaking cold, and 2. The fact that some local weather person is going to report the temperature and then some local news anchor is going to make some stupid joke like "so much for global warming" or "jeez Larry, what about this global warming that everyone is talking about." Just shut up. Seriously. Not funny. Just annoying. If they just would've called it something like 'global climate crisis' or 'impending wrath of Mother Nature' then I'd only have to deal with the cold, and not the unfunny local news banter. 

This got me thinking about Manwich. Yes, the canned sloppy joe sauce. I know, we switch topics pretty quickly here, so try to keep up. Anyway, Manwich recently changed their jingle. It used to be:

(Jamaican Sounding Guy Singing)

Momma don't ya make me another meatloaf/

forget the Mac 'n' Cheese/

I want some fun piled on a bun/

I want a Manwich please.

And their new jingle is:

(Annoying kids singing)

Hey you don't have to be a man to love manwich/

you don't have to be a witch either, it's true/

You just have to love a fun tasty dinner/

And wearing some of that dinner on you.

So Manwich is now using valuable jingle space to address the fact that their name is not literal. I wonder if this is because they were getting lots of calls to their customer service center with inquiries from women. Or maybe they were finding that only men and wiccans were purchasing their product. I can't think of any other reason to get rid of the best jingle and replace it with this garbage.

It's not just the global climate crisis and delicious sloppy joe paste that have inconvenient names. I'd like to submit Benjamin Franklin Plumbing into evidence as Exhibit C. What is Benjamin Franklin's connection to the plumbing trade? That's all I think about when I hear their commercials. Their tagline is something about Ben being the punctual plumber. I did a solid four minutes of research on Franklin tonight, and I can't find anything about plumbing or punctuality. He did invent the flexible urinary catheter, but that's a bit of a stretch. Flexible Urinary Catheter would also be a pretty awesome band name, but that's beside the point. The point is, their name doesn't make any damn sense, and I think they know it. That's why they end their commercials with another pop culture reference (that has nothing to do with Franklin, plumbing, or punctuality). The end of their jingle is as follows:

(guy who sounds like Tommy Tutone)

Benny's the punctual plumber/

866 - That's his prefix/

Then 8675309

I don't get it. Ben Franklin has nothing to do with plumbing. Ben Franklin has nothing to do with Tommy Tutone. Tommy Tutone and his song have nothing to do with plumbing. What the hell is going on here?

Alright, that's about all for today. I'm pretty much out of time here. That four minutes of research on Ben Franklin didn't help. Time to tend to my bird flu. Maybe a manwich would help.