Iced, Iced, Baby
OK, I’m gonna have to start this post out with a rant. It’s about Ben and Jerry’s Free Cone Day. I know, you’re not supposed to rant about free ice cream, but bear with me. When Ben and Jerry’s started Free Cone Day, it was a great idea! Then it slowly became a less great idea as more and more people found out about it, until literally everyone in America knew about it. Which is great for their promotion and all, but it kind of ruined it, because if you want free ice cream, you now have to wait online for an hour or longer. I went a few years ago with gansie and after waiting for 45 minutes or so, which was longer than my entire lunch break, I gave up and figured I could just buy ice cream the next day for way less effort.
This is what I don’t get about people and free things. People will do just about anything to get something for free. If someone said, “Hey, if you stand in this line on the street for an hour, I’ll give you 3 dollars,” you’d say “screw off, I’m not homeless.” If your boss said, “How about you stay at work an extra hour and I’ll give you 3 dollars?” you would tell them where to shove it. But you WILL stand in line for an hour for free ice cream, which is only worth about 3 dollars.
After SoGood started the whole LeBron James-Papa Johns debacle, people were waiting in line in Ohio for 3 HOURS for their 23 cent pizza! That is ridiculous. By any standard of measurement, no Papa Johns pizza is worth 3 hours of your life.
So I’ve come to realize that if something is free, it’s just not worth it. That is, of course, unless other people don’t know about it, and people seem to be unaware of Dunkin’ Donuts Free Iced Coffee Day, which is TODAY! (Thursday). Dunkin’ Donuts is one of our fav things here at ES, so this one ought to be great, unless too many pesky food bloggers go and write about it.
All day long today, at any DD in America, you can walk in and get a free 16 oz. iced coffee. Someone check it out and let me know how long the lines are.
Just a heads up: the free iced coffee deal doesn’t start until 10 AM. It runs until 10 PM, but apparently they didn’t want to interfere with the usual morning rush.
Fyi: for DC folks, the best Ben & Jerry’s store for free cone day is the one in the Old Post Office Pavilion, I waited no more than 7 minutes and 32 seconds, at lunch time. Score.
Ugh. This is so true. I’m always amazed at the lengths people will go to to get something that’s “free.” For that matter, I’ve been with people who will drive across town to get 2 cents per gallon off their gas… Three words: cost/benefit ratio.
Hope nobody went before 10 – sorry I didn’t clarify that – because of my pajama’d lifestyle, it didn’t even occur to me that people might leave the house before 10am, even for coffee.
Haha, that is so funny. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I saw all those people lined up at Ben & Jerry’s! I didn’t have a clue what was going on!
You Americans sound like the Dutch, they love free stuff!