It was recently announced that the New Mexico Department of Transportation and other states were going to implement a new form of the public awareness campaign. Instead of putting out a public safety message through billboards or commercials they will be advising the public of their best interest through urinal cakes. Now for those of you who are not familiar with the urinal cake it is a deodorizer put into men’s latrines (about 50% of the general population). It is highly visible to a captive audience for about 30 seconds (or longer, see A League of Their Own for a further treatment).
This strategy is nothing new for years these urinal cakes have said, “Say No To Drugs.” Advice I have heeded but not because of the urinal cake. As a matter of fact, it is the urinal cake that almost caused me to reconsider my stance on drug use. Think about it, you take advice from places above you, positions you admire, people you would like to emulate. If the urinal cake has been saying “No” to drugs and this is where it got, perhaps we should reconsider. No one in their right mind would say, “I’d like to end up like this urinal cake, I won’t take drugs.”
Perhaps instead the opposite message should go on the urinal cake. Maybe the urinal cake should say, “I took drugs and this is where it got me.” That’s a message I just heard loud and clear!
Speaking of loud and clear, that’s what makes this new strategy so bizarre. The second generation urinal cakes talk! And New Mexico plans on putting them in restrooms at bars where when the motion sensor is activated they’ll say, “Hey call a cab!” or some similar warning. Imagine some poor inebriated fellow at 2am stumbling into that restroom when all of a sudden the toilet starts talking! You bet he’ll call a cab and take it straight to rehab or the pysch ward…maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all.