It’s apparent that toothpaste companies are lazy. First off, I don’t think their whitening formulas do anything. I’ve been using one that claims to make your smile brighter, but my teeth are still as yellow as they were a month ago when I started.
When I began with this tube of paste, a dispensary design which hasn’t changed in the history of modern oral cleaners, it was full and evenly dispersed. We’ve all seen what happens to a tube after you use it for a few weeks; you have a section in the middle that is flat and more toothpaste at the end which is now going to be an event to squeeze out.
The fact that these companies can operate without making extreme changes to these designs is baffling. What other product could a corporation sell that was hard to get to due to its packaging? It’s something that we, as consumers, have come to expect. The phrase should be changed to “death, taxes and rolled up toothpaste tubes.”
Segments of our country act like these tubes. The connection is simple. We’re happy to quickly grab our toothpaste in the morning and squeeze it in the middle, continuing with our day. We take for granted that our teeth are clean, but seem to forget that there is another half of the tube waiting to be used. The average person doesn’t pay attention to the entire tube until we are forced to use it.
The past week and a half has been frustrating for me. As a New York Giants fan, you’d think that I’d be ecstatic that my team is about to play in the Super Bowl. I’m elated by that fact. What’s infuriating is that I cannot watch ESPN or any other sports news coverage during this two week span. To go beyond that teachers are using the Giants and Patriots as examples in class.
If I turn on one of these channels I’ll see one of two things. Either a group of men arguing about which team will win and why or, which is more frustrating, are features on each of the dominant players in the matchup. These might include something on Eli Manning or Tom Brady. All sports fans have seen them.
These are players and analyses that weren’t given any attention until this week. We took for granted that they were there until now. At this point it’s the obvious thing to talk about in sports. If we plug this into the toothpaste model, it fits perfectly.
Applying this outside of the sporting world is even easier. Last week most of us listened to the President give his State of the Union speech for 2012. From that speech, there was much analysis given on all the networks.
Our president is not on vacation for the other 364 days of the year, but you might think so if you base your findings on media coverage. That can be applied further as we broaden that look at the campaign trails for the GOP candidates.
For the past three years we’ve been going about our daily lives with little-to-no interest of the political climate around us. Now, in the past three months, the Republican candidates are all you can see on network media. That is fair because of the four-year election cycle that we have for the executive office.
Here’s what bothers me. All of a sudden everyone is an expert on politics. They have their theories about what is right and wrong in the candidates policies and what will work and why. All of a sudden you know? Where have you been the last three years? Where has this debate been?
It’s now what everyone is talking about. Time is running out on Obama’s term in office after he was widely ignored for his first three years. What’s happening now is we’re rolling up our toothpaste. Now it’s time to pay attention to what was stuck at the end of the tube.