Nope, nothing hinky going on here.
January 10th, 2016
Yesteday I mentioned, in an offhand fashion, the bigoted clowns Brenda and I encountered during a drive through Kentucky. Since that episode was a bizarre story unto itself, I figure I would go ahead and expand and expound upon my comment some. To wit, we were journeying to the one and only Mammoth caves in southern Kentucky, in order to hike through the rather historical underground locale.
The drive from our apartment through Cincinnati was relatively uneventful, but when running low on gas and liquid refreshment, I opted to patronize a gas station shortly thereafter. This turned out to be an error, as there was apparently some sort of massive hustle going on at that location, which I was blissfully unaware of until it was all too late.
Getting out to fill up the Fit ™, I noted the inexplicable van painted with what you see here, but was admittedly more disgruntled by the immense spider dangling ominously from the gas pump. At least, I was unti three goons who had been shouting at passersby started ambling towards us. This, naturally, put me in stabby mode, and I think the weirdo hustlers sensed that I was ready to grab my Murder Shovel ™.
Addressing me tenously, the one in the center asked if I wanted to buy a CD. Initially suspecting some sort of weird music bootlegging operation was in progress, I quickly pieced together the fact that these goons were associated with the van opposite our car. Asking them about that, they let us know that they were out selling CDs to promote a band's new album, which had just been released, presumably.
At midnight. In a gas station parking lot. My abject loathing of country 'music' notwithstanding, I found this more than a little bit hinky then, and I still do to this very day. So, respectfully declining their offer to sell me a cheap disc full of cheap music about ten times before they got the hint, I went into the gas station to buy some drinks, at which point the first 'pink shirt' incident ensued.
The really distressing part was, on another stop at another gas station near Louisville later that night, we ran into even more of these clowns. Morbidly curious, I interrogated another of them upon being approached, who proceeded to inform me that there were dozens of vans, decorated just like this one, engaged in a seemingly inefficient promotion throughout Kentucky. Or whatever the heck their deal really was.
After bowing out from the purchase of their 'music' CD at least ten more times, I got the two of us another drink, and then got us the heck out of Dodge before they put band stickers on the Fit ™. Or forced us to listen to their product, even. On the plus side, once we were well south of Louisville, we didn't run into any more of these people... because they just might have gotten Shoveled ™.
Looking back on that strange, strange evening, I still don't know how efficient a marketing plan this is. I mean, hiring fifty temps to drive around all night in ten decorated vans, selling your product to whoever is gullible enough to do so at such a late hour? So I did some research, and found out that this wasn't the first time these goons pulled this stunt.
Another day, another grifter. Sigh. I suppose I should be happy about my suspicions being justified and/or correct, if not just a little bit smug regarding the whole thing. But it's just another verification of the fact that the human race is doomed, what with a) people pulling ridiculous stunts like this, and b) people encouraging them to keep doing so by giving them their hard-earned money.
Sigh. Kids these days.