Checkers should let the cat out of the bag
Tampa-based Checkers Drive-in restaurant no longer wants anyone letting the cat out of the bag. They’re more concerned with getting it there in the first place.
In a new advertising scheme, the restaurant is distributing paper bags designed to look like the basketball jersey worn by the puppet Rapcat in the restaurant’s commercials. The bags are designed to be worn by real cats and have holes for the head, legs and tails.
The bag actually comes with a warning (because everything has to these days) that reads, “Not all cats will be down with wearing this bag. Do not harm or endanger any cat.”
Apparently, Checkers Drive-in desperately wants more idiots and masochists as customers.
Anyone who has had any contact with a cat knows that these creatures are not usually “down with” wearing any sort of clothing. They have never developed cultural taboos against public nudity. They frankly don’t see the point of wearing clothes, particularly a paper bag. Cats generally don’t go along with ideas they don’t like.
And I don’t know about whoever came up with this loony idea, but most people have figured out that unlike TV commercial puppets, cats aren’t particularly friendly to anyone who tries to force them to do anything they aren’t “down with.”
Maybe the idea is people won’t want to cook dinner after a hard day of forcing a feisty cat into a bag, getting scratched up so much they have language specialists showing up to decipher the claw marks (“Hmmm … I think this one is an ancient Sumerian symbol meaning, ‘What were you thinking, you evil creep? Leave me alone before I unleash my murderous rage on you’”), falling out of the neighbor’s tree after trying to catch the runaway cat (and having them call the police on you for trespassing if these aren’t nice neighbors) and possibly a trip to friendly neighborhood emergency room (where the nurses all tell you for the umpteenth time what an idiot you were). I understand.
I wouldn’t want to finish off a day like that with the possibility of burnt dinner and a headache- inducing smoke alarm. I’d want some comfort food, a back rub, a drink and a good comedy movie.
But I most certainly would not want to go out in public after all that, particularly not to the restaurant that caused the ordeal in the first place.
The point is, just because a puppet will do it on TV doesn’t mean it will work in real life.
Just because Spiderman can make death-defying leaps off of tall buildings in the movies doesn’t mean a guy in a costume can do it in real life.
Just because cartoon characters can get up and walk away ten seconds after being blown up doesn’t mean we should go around throwing grenades at each other.
And just because some producer can talk puppet cat into wearing a jersey does not mean real cats want to wear a paper bag replica.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum