Won't Watchovia

This photo captures a compounding of a couple of peeves I have: the vinyl sign and the shady financial institution. I can't resist a rant here.

I'm an aspiring optimist with an distinct aesthetic orientation so I maybe I'm more challenged by the plague that is modern advertising than many. Most of it is oppressive visual garbage to me. A depressing din. I steel myself just to drive around town. In fact, I have such a revulsion for "Buy This!" ploys that I've developed a bit of blindness that actually doesn't serve me when I'm really in the market. So I have this lament about the uglification that happens in a consumer culture. Forget elegant understatement or letting things speak for themselves. These days the cry to consume is mostly a ruthless take-you-by-the-throat affair and I have to stay positive by giving thanks that there aren't ads on the moon...yet.

Everyday the yellow-orange plastic fast-flashing hook-you info cram gets a bit more intense and I find I've developed a new peeve, nagging for attention like a nasty little dog. I must continually and pointedly look away, sighing with irritation but that does nothing to ease the problem I have with this ubiquitous eyesore: the saggy vinyl sign. I suppose the small business needs a cheap sign to make a go of it and maybe I'm the only one who thinks these sad plastic wonders are really suited only to the brand new or the temporary. A grand opening or an event, OK. They shouldn't hang perpetually in every nook and cranny of town, flapping like lame birds.

Here's where I get really riled. These lame birds should NOT be used to entice customers into banking. I have really been bugged by the plethora of banks in town with a wrinkled banner as their main tag. Nothing says fly-by-night like a floppy sheet of landfill hastily lashed to some recently empty building and I just have to shake my head in wonder. That a bank should be housed in a structure of solid foundation, with thick walls and preferably some large columns, is basic. It should exude security. That was focused-grouped like a hundred years ago, right? I am able to let that one go. But at the very least there should be strong permanent signage, securely affixed. Made of gold metal even.

Anyway, a wimpy banner does not bode well for a bank and a sly punny name is worse. When I first caught sight of the Wachovia sign here in town I experienced a slight wave of disgust. How patronizing is that? It came off so flip and condescending. Oh, yeah, we'll watch over ya (snicker). I figured I was just in a mood, reading too much into it. Turns out, my gut reaction was telling. Headline: Feds Look At Watchovia In Drug Money Probe (!) Scamming seniors, accepting unsigned checks and other practices questionable for a large financial institution. Rather disturbing really.

I don't enjoy the feeling I sometimes have that my hometown has morphed into a Pottertown with fast food huts, bong shops, seasonal crapstops and tattoo parlors. (Do we really need one on every corner?) Now questionable banks plastered with cheap vinyl. I pine for the old days when my Grandpa lettered the shop shingles and painted ads for Clover milk on the walls of neighborhood stores, by hand and with skill. When signs really attracted and banks looked like banks to be trusted.

End of rant.