Hey Wait I Need To Read What's On My Coffee Cup!

...And what's on my napkin and what's on my protective heat shield thing. When, may I ask, did having short, smarmy little blurbs plastered all over our beverages and food become so commonplace? Really like who has time to read all this stuff? Yeah sure I am gonna read that paragraph on my napkin just before I use it to blow my nose. And on to-go bags? Come on, I don't really need to know about your food preparation process while I am walking back to work. It's like all these companies realized they could save some money on advertising by plastering silly comments all over their packaging. I believe Vitamin Water is to blame for this whole mess. I think it was a little over ten years ago when these beverages started popping up in NYC with their funny little blurbs on their plastic wrappings. It was amusing at first, but honestly who's buying these drinks for the writing? Did the copywriters really believe this is working as free advertising? The problem is that everyone is doing it now. Starbucks, MacDonalds, Snapple, Dunkin Donuts and the list goes on. Even Duane Reade has gotten into the act (for the laymen it's like a Walgreens). They have their own brand of foods and drinks now called De Lish (how original) and they have some of that silly writing as well. For instance on one of their Ice Tea's they have written: VitaliTea, SimpliciTea, New York CiTea....How friggin' annoying. But honestly the biggest offender right now has to be Starbucks with some damn little paragraph or blurb on everything they sell, even their breath mints say something stupid. Come on! Did you guys just need to give some little graphic designer a job to do when the economy went bad? Forget bringing a newspaper with you when you go in for a cup of coffee, just sit there and read your purchase! Start out with the napkin because you will be using that one pretty quickly, then move onto the protective heat shield thing so you can save the cup for later after your coffee gets cold....You wonder why people never read any signs or directions. We are so bombarded by words that we tend to ignore the really important ones like: Caution, Hot Beverage Inside. Ouch! I think I just burned my tongue. Second on my list of egregious over-wording-us-to-death shops is Chipotle. Just recently I have noticed that they have revamped their packaging to include these artfully written, but still goofy, seudo interviews on their cups and bags. For example on the picture above is a soda cup with an interview of an avocado printed on it...oh joy, now that is certainly a must read. We live in the age of information overload and people want to know everything there is to know about well everything. But to me that's what the internet is for, if you want to know how Cipotle makes their guacamole, just sit on your ass at home and read it on your computer. It's all just become one large clusterfuck of words that I don't want to read.

Example:
Customer: "It says here on your napkin that you recycle all your paper goods, is that true?"
Clerk: "Yes of course."
Customer: "But I just watched one of your employees over there just throw out three bags of garbage onto the sidewalk and they were filled with empty coffee cups."
Clerk: "No they weren't that was other garbage."
Customer: "It also says on your napkin that you don't lie about what it says on your napkin either."
Clerk: "No it doesn't, I lie all the time."

I remember the good ole' days when a bag of Doritos only had words on it like....Real Cheese Flavor! or Great Taste! Or your chocolate milk carton at school having some kid that was missing since 1986 on the back....those were the days. Wouldn't it be smarter if these companies would write all this stuff in French, then maybe we could all learn a second language while we try to decifer the calorie content? That would be great except of course for the French.