Tonight we went to a Christmas parade in New Berlin. I’ll leave out the reasoning and whatnot, because that isn’t important. As we entered the city, I noticed they had a new sign. It had the city name on top, and below it, a Bud Light logo. I kid you not… Remember, this is Wisconsin. It’s not like Budweiser has a plant around here or anything… they just have some sort of sponsorship agreement with this random city of maybe 40,000 people.
I got over that and we went to the parade. It was mighty cold outside, but that didn’t stop the opportunistic town of New Berlin from trying to make an extra buck. See, this parade was different from ones I had seen in the past. Normally you see people in parades walking with signs that say “Troop 49 Girl Scouts” or “South High School Marching Band.” This parade, you saw “US Bank”, “Quiznos Subs” and “Qdoba”. It’s not like there was a sign for a business and then some reindeer or something behind it either. There was maybe 15 signs being carried by 2-3 people wearing their mittens and jackets and that was it. No special attraction, no battons being twirled, just an advertisement. I counted at least 7 banks represented. There were a few franchise food places, a tree nursery, a vet clinic, and several other businesses (some not even from the town, there was a bank from a neighboring city). All the people watching seemed to take it in as if it were commonplace.
I always knew this day would come… I just hoped I’d be dead by the time it did. When the mayor rolled by, nobody threw eggs or fish at him or anything. They waved at him just like they did the clowns, or santa or the nice lady with the deli sign. I hear next year they will be charging admission, or at least having a 2 drink cover.