My wife just purchased a new yoga mat. Here is the first item on the list of “Care Instructions”:

Clean your sacred space with saddle soap or an organic detergent.

I wouldn’t recommend it. The last time I cleaned my sacred space with saddle soap I got a really bad rash.

For our recent move, I rented a 26′ Super Mover from U-Haul to carry our belongings across town.

When I went to pick up the truck, they handed me a small piece of paper that featured a diagram of the truck and told me to inspect the truck, marking the location of any pre-existing dents or scratches. After circling the truck and making all of the proper notations, you could barely make out the outline of the truck underneath all the ink.

That, along with the 129,000 miles on the odometer, should have been my first clues that this was not going to be a quality moving experience, but I ignored the warning signs, signed the contract, hopped in, and started driving to our old house to pick up the first load.

There were two things emblazoned on the side of the truck. First, it stated:

Gross Vehicle Weight: 18,000 lbs. Max

Second was the assertion that the truck featured a:

Gentle-Ride Van

They got it half right because, while it was indeed a “gross vehicle,” the ride was anything but gentle. In fact, the vibration inside the cab was so bad that two-inch gaps kept appearing between the doors and the door frames. I was sure that the doors were going to pop off at any moment, but when I tried express this fear to my friend Dan who was riding with me, the engine noise was so deafening that he couldn’t hear me.

The ride was so unpleasant that after making one trip to the new house in the truck, my wife refused to make the return trip in our “Gentle-Ride Van.” I think she was also a little embarrassed because as we drove down the street with doors rattling, engine whining, gears grinding, and chassis creaking, passersby would reel around in horror thinking that a cargo plane carrying malfunctioning band instruments was bearing down on them.

Another problem was that second gear didn’t exist. OK, to be fair, second gear existed, but it was easier to shift from first to third rather than spend the five minutes it took to find the magic combination of clutch position, engine speed, and expletives necessary to get the beast into second. (To accomplish this yourself, simply put the truck into first, let out the clutch, wait until the engine gets to about 162,000 RPMs, and then kick it into third.)

The emergency brake didn’t work, either. It was more like a “suggestion” brake, suggesting to the truck that it would be really nice if it didn’t roll down the hill, but it wasn’t going to insist on it. And once you got the loading ramp out, someone would have to climb underneath the truck and put it back on track before you could push it back in again. The air coming out of the air conditioner was hotter than than the air outside. Even the AM/FM radio was DOA. (Not that you would have been able to hear anything anyway, but still…)

All of this wouldn’t have been nearly so bad if, two weeks after our U-Hell fiasco, my brother-in-law hadn’t pulled up in a gleaming Penske moving truck that he had just driven out from the Bay Area. As I stroked the unblemished paint, listened to the purring engine, and eyed the spotless interior, he talked about how great his moving experience had been.

I hate him.

It started as corporate self-promotion. Those little plastic screens that you find in the bottom of urinals used to simply say:

Sanitized by Swisher

…but it soon evolved into lifestyle advice:

Sanitized by Swisher
Say No To Drugs

I’m sure that there were quite a few heroin addicts who were persuaded to reform after being lectured by a bathroom fixture, but I resent the rather sexist implication that urinal users are the only ones in need of drug-free advice. I hope that the tampon dispensers in the Ladies’ room carry the same words of wisdom.

Then they decided that you would take investment advice from a urinal:

Sanitized by Swisher
A Publicly Traded Company

After hearing his colleagues brag about their portfolios all afternoon, Mr. Robertson excused himself from the table and strode toward the bathroom. “I need a new investment strategy,” he muttered under his breath. “I have an impeccably balanced portfolio with asset allocations in line with my personal goals and retirement time line, but something seems to be missing. <zip> Hmm… Perhaps the world’s leading restroom hygiene service provider holds the key to my financial future.

And now they want to lure you to their Web site:

Sanitized by Swisher
www.swisheronline.com

…where you are greeted by a Flash animation with background music rivaling that of the finest porn films. You can also view a video presentation extolling the virtues of becoming a Swisher franchisee where they actually use the word “pilferage” and discuss the glamorous possibilities of working with such “blue chip companies” as Dunkin Donuts and AMF Bowling Centers.

Why can’t they let a urinal just be a urinal?