two for me…NONE FOR YOU

does that ring a bell of early 90s advertisement to you? most people probably remember this twix slogan, but don’t feel bad if you didn’t catch it because sue shut that shit down right away. that’s right, i give my mother full credit for this one.

in retrospect, she may have had a point – it really wasn’t emphasizing the importance of sharing and likely contributed to the rise of childhood obesity – but it was the 90s and rude was cool. while other people were eating each other’s shorts and having or not having cows, we were living in miss manners’ boot camp. heithcliff had been banned, saying “shut up” was an offense punishable by soap-mouth, and this twix business was not going to fly.

my mother set about solving this problem as anyone would. the relentless, sternly-worded letter writing campaign began immediately. diligent in her efforts, it didn’t take long to slay the beast. the commercial disappeared from the air waves and order was restored. as i remember, enough twix bars showed up at our door to fill a vault and swim in it scrooge mcduck-style. my mom will tell you that it was just a few coupons for free twix. regardless, we weren’t allowed to have them, and some of us still aren’t entirely over it.

the moral of this story, and a good lesson for all of you who weren’t raised by crazies, is that the solution to ever minor injustice is to write a letter. i can already tell you that from mid-march on, my father will make repeated phone calls to the cbs office in new york to yell about which ncaa games are being broadcast in chicago (he will call angrily, multiple times in a row, he will make you call too, so that they see that other viewers are also outraged – and when he gets really infuriated, he will declare his ultimate insult: “you don’t even deserve to be showing the tournament”, pretty good right), and the whole time you will hear sue in the background saying that the only way to accomplish anything is to write a letter.

rewind a week, when brian-the-brain alerted us all to a free sub situation going down at quiznos. as you may or may not know, i am a slut for sandwiches – my year was officially made…or was it?

i completed the registration and even spread the goodness on to my siblings so they wouldn’t miss out, but when i went to print my coupon, something went wrong. horribly, horribly wrong. my knowledge of technology is pathetic at best – it’s all magic to me, and if turning something off and then on again doesn’t work, then i’m screwed. struck by the terror of losing my sandwich, i was calmed by my mother’s voice in my head. sandwich, you will be mine.

i immediately composed an email to the folks at quizno’s explaining how i played by the rules and got burned. i assured them that in no way was i trying to get a second free sandwich, i just hadn’t been able to access my first and there must be something they could do. i spent the next day of school happily drawing graphic doodles of me making love to sandwiches, fantasizing about swaddling my sandwich babies in wax paper and nurturing them until i was hungry or hungover, when i would proceed to eat my young.

but as the time passed, and the number of free sandwiches climbed closer to one million, my confidence dwindled. in a desperate attempt, i created a fake email account and even lied about part where it asks for your favorite sub to throw them off my scent (however, i did spend about 5 minutes struggling with this decision out of fear that i then would be forced to get anything other than the one veggie sub i adore). unfortunately, this brilliant plan fell apart.

a few days ago, they reached the alleged million, and i was genuinely saddened. now, i’m not going to say that i had nothing else on my mind, but i was definitely being haunted by the sub that got away. the more i thought about it, my disappointment turned to indignation – how dare they not even respond to me. and so, fueled by my righteous anger, i sat down and wrote my second letter.

it was only after sending this that i realized i had officially become my mother’s soldier in the letter-writing crusade for equality and politeness. fortunately, if things get out of my league, i am living with an expert — the sensei of spite herself. the only difference is that i plan to have my twix and eat ‘em too.

Categorised in: Random Posts

This post was written by Kelly