“THE HESS TRUCK IS BACK!” came the cries of hundreds of thousands of children from nowhere ever because none of them actually gave a shit.
I was in my car this morning listening to WAAF, as I always do, because those jerks crack me up every morning. I giggle my way into work to the sounds of Ebola jokes, political bashing, and LB eating someone else’s lunch. This morning however, my cheer on NOVEMBER FOURTH was disrupted by commercials I was hoping to go at LEAST another week without having to fucking listen to.
Imagine if you will, driving, listening to your favorite off color morning show, when suddenly a chorus of school children, in their most sugary-sweet, diabetes-inducing, teeth-achingly horrific tone… erupt into song, “THE HESS TRUCKS BACK AND IT’S BETTER THAN EVEEEEEEER”. Dear. God. Send help. This shitbag jingle will get stuck in my head for DAYS, and not just the jingle mind you. The whole arrangement. The bells, the beeping of the truck horn, and the children’s voices. Sweet Jesus, the children’s voices. It’s like listening to a pack of cats (Do they come in a pack? Or is it more like a palette? A palette of cats? Maybe?) being disemboweled by Satan himself. Like a hundred tiny ghosts wailing out for someone to send their souls to their final rest. Like some other cliche simile that makes your asshole pucker.
Needless to say, this commercial grates on me in a way I didn’t even think was possible. Possibly more than a throng of drunk college chicks screaming ‘Wrecking Ball’ into a karaoke microphone at a shitty Chinese food place that smells like a bottle return. (As you can see, this article is just FULL of fun, colorful similes!) “What is it about this awful jingle/commercial is it that gets to me?”, I begin to wonder. I wracked my brain, nearly rear-ended some poor SOB in front of me, and then just as I was about to veer off the road (thanks to staring off into space thinking about the fucking HESS TRUCK COMMERCIAL) it came to me.
Long ago… on Christmas night in Boston, my brother received a Hess Truck for Christmas.(And yes, I can say Christmas, because it’s my blog, so fuck you and your ‘happy holidays’ ya bunch of pinko liberals!) He opened the sizable box, his nails tearing away at the paper as if the package within would somehow reveal the secret to life. Well, the life of a five year old anyway…which would be like, elbow macaroni, but I digress! He ripped, and tore, and squealed with excitement… and then the gift within revealed itself. A fucking Hess Truck. Now, some of you may say, “but he’s a five year old boy, that’s exactly what they want! Trucks and shit!”. No, reader. You are wrong. So, so, very wrong. This truck was the wrong SIZE! It was too big for his race track, it was 1000x the size of his Hotwheels, and it sang stupid Christmas music when you pushed some bullshit button on it. Because you know, when I think of the holidays, I think of a fucking green and white truck. Yeah, that’s what I want chirping “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” at me. A fucking truck? Who’s idea was this thing ANYWAY?
As the ugly maw of the truck was pulled forth from the box, the sound that erupted from my brothers little face, can only be described as desperate. He didn’t cry. He didn’t throw a fit. He out-right SOBBED. He SCREAMED. He threw a god damn academy award winning tantrum that I am sure the whole neighborhood could hear. This was NOT the Tonka truck he wanted, and it WASN’T Hotwheels. Which he made a point to shout over and over. I had attempted to sit in the corner and play with my new American Girl doll because I was an entitled white child, and that’s the sort of thing we get for Christmas, but NO. My brother was FURIOUS that I had gotten what I wanted, and he got this awful truck, which was clearly gifted to him JUST to ruin his day. Mind you, we still had many gifts to open, but he seemed to be stuck on the issue.
Anyway, the tragedy of it all calmed once he opened his next (what felt like) ninety presents, which I believe, were a trap laid for me. Legos. They got the little shit boxes, upon boxes of Legos. So he opened them all, littering them about the floor like so many caltrops ready to embed themselves in our festively decorated, Christmassy socked, feet. “What does this have to do with anything”, you ask? Well. He figured out that the truck itself was jointed, much like a real 18 wheeler. So rather than learn how to play with it like a real toy truck, he decided to chase me into his Lego Death Pit, where I was unable to walk, by wielding the truck like some sort of eighteen wheeled flail.
As the wheels came down upon my tiny, blonde, seven year old head, I began to wonder, “Who sells these things to children?”. I remember being so confused. What was it about this trite piece of tin that got everyone in such a tizzy? I mean, really. Who buys Christmas gifts that are exclusively sold at a gas station? Gas station fans? Does anyone really even use Hess around here? I think there’s like… two that I’ve ever even SEEN in my young life.
I just don’t understand it. WHY. WHY a truck from a gas station? Has anyone ever really gone into a gas station and said “Hmm, I should shop for my family and loved ones here!” I really don’t think so.
The song on the radio is clearly the dissonant chant of brainwashed wizard children working for their evil Hess overlord. End the tyranny.
Get that song off the radio, I can’t keep risking crashing my car.
XOXO Mika
PS: Send all hate mail to erik@nerdfit.com