foregone conclusions: why advertising on public transit might not be the best idea

so earlier this evening i was on my way home, crossing santa monica blvd, and the green light was about to turn yellow. i almost made it through the light but i got stuck behind a bus that had come to a complete stop for no apparent reason. he didn't have his hazards on, no traffic had stopped in front of him, and there's no bustop there. at least i hope there's no bus stop there, because, well, it would be the STUPIDEST PLACE IN THE WORLD to put a bus stop. there's a bench there, next to the gas station, so maybe it was a rookie bus driver who saw the bench and thought bench = stop?

but i digress.

i don't know if this was a big blue bus or an MTA bus or what, mainly because it was all covered up in one of those creepy shrink-wrappy ads that turned this particular bus into a monstrous behemoth whose sole purpose seems to be advertising...THE YARD HOUSE. (let's put aside the fact that it actually kindasorta makes sense to have some kind of advertising partnerships between bars and public transportation. "90% of drunks agree, take the bus, you'll arrive alive!" um....ok, never mind; there's a reason i'm not in the ad business.)

anyhoo, i'm stuck behind the yard house beast thanks to the stream of cars in the left lane and my ass is sticking back out into santa monica blvd. and i'm not thinking "damn you bus" or "damn you MTA" or even "damn you, possible rookie driver". i'm thinking, DAMN YOU YARD HOUSE!!! ok, ok, i wasn't thinking it, i was indeed yelling out loud, "YARD HOUSE, YOU ASSHOLE! GET OUT OF THE DAMN ROAD! I WILL NEVER GO TO THE YARD HOUSE AGAIN!*" until finally the driver sorted his shit out or somebody filled him in on the fact that there was no reason to stop there. but this being rush hour, of course i was stuck behind it for another two blocks (where, incidentally, the REAL bus stop is.)

so yeah, i know it might not be the most logical or rational response to such a situation, but i mean, seriously, the WHOLE BUS was an ad for yard house. for one split second i was like "what the hell is this yard house shuttle doing? and why can't father's office have a shuttle? i'd take THAT shuttle every day!" before i realized it was actually a public bus.

so yard house, you lost THIS customer, baby. (hey, i can put away a lot of beer, they'll totally feel it in their bottom line.) maybe next time, at least make your ads smaller so you can at least share the blame with MTA.

*yes, despite my general lack of desire to hang out with douchey overgrown fratards and drink mediocre beer out of ridiculous glasses, i have in fact "dined" in two separate yard house locations.

and that's my quarterly post. foregone conclusions- interrupting months of blissful nothingness to bring you only the most pressing and fascinating issues of our time.