This week in swag

March 29

I’m getting more food and drink sent to my office than usual these days. I'm not sure why. Spring marketing blitz, maybe.
The best thing I've gotten was a package of four pints of ice cream and three ice cream bars, although I'm not complaining about the bottle of Riesling.
I also got a bottle of sparkling water with accompanying cocktail shaker, t-shirt, jigsaw puzzle coasters, and hundreds of identical temporary tattoos — a package that proves that I will never understand marketing people. I don’t even write about sparkling water, and what does sparkling water have to do with a cocktail shaker, anyway? Sparkling water normally would be added to the top of a cocktail after it was mixed. Shaking it would let out all the fizz.
I got a bunch of sodas that are supposed to be good for me, along with a cutting board made of wood fibers that the press materials said was "the preferred food preparation surface by restaurant chefs worldwide," which of course it is not. However the cutting board did have an invitation to a free spa treatment pasted on it, which is nice. But I don't write about cutting boards or soda, let alone spa treatments.
And the sodas were gross: loaded with citric acid and artificial sweeteners, along with little micronutrients that are supposed to smooth out your skin or boost your immune system or make you more alert or calm you down or make you more flexible and so on and so on, depending on which one you’re drinking. I suppose they did quite a bit of consumer research before deciding that they all should taste like sweetened battery acid.
Loved the ice cream, though.