January 3, 2008
Vigilante Goes on Offense Against Unwanted Menus
Outraged by the unstoppable deluge of delivery menus on your doormat and the inability of our elected officials to stem the rising tide? You are not alone! One man has decided to take matters into his own hands by designing a sticker for your apartment door to ward off unwanted promotions.
I've decided to start promoting my own solution: a simple bumper sticker that uses a helpful diagram to warn trespassers that fingers will be crushed if menus are put under the door. This has actually made a huge difference in reducing the number of menus arriving at my house.
Now you too can protect your home with one of these stickers, for just $1.99 a pop – or get ten times the security by buying ten for $15.99. You never can be too vigilant these days – what with the risk of paper cuts, back injuries from picking up the detritus and obesity brought on by unsought menu temptation.
Boingboing’s tireless commenters, rivaled in diligence only by Gothamist readers, were quick to point out that not only is the Spanish translation “terrible” and “proto-racist” but it’s also quite unnecessary for fingers to actually pass underneath the door to slide a menu through. A more sophisticated solution might be to devise a highly weight-sensitive interior doormat which, when triggered by the menu, would release a thick plume of tear gas.
How do you cope with the scourge of menus? How will it influence your vote in the upcoming primary election? And if delivery menus are eradicated, what ever will become of The Menu King?
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It's not just menus, but useless supermarket advertisements, business cards and flyers for every sort of tradespeople (brownstone repair, waterproofing, electricians, plumbers, locksmiths), parking garages, etc. A "do not call" registry for home-delivered spam would be perfect, but is a fantasy.
you notice in the winter, there's less menus? haven't got any in the last month.
Does he make them in Chinese, Korean, Turkish and Hindi? Without the multi-lingual dimension it wouldn't help much in Queens.
And what's up with the implicit threat of violence? Hurm, perhaps a noble idea gone too far?
What chaps my ass about getting menus under my apt door isn't so much that the delivery guy does it.
What pisses me off is my lazy ass neighbors who can't walk their fat asses down a flight or two to collect their pork fried rice and boneless spareribs at the front door (my building isn't large) *OR* who are too careless to notice if vestibule door actually closed all the way, thus allowing any jackoff to traipse through the building at will.
I rack a shot gun everytime I see a person getting ready to put a menu by my door. It usually does the trick.
this is racist
I call 311 whenever I hear the sound of a firearm racking. I think I've watched enough TV to know what it sounds like.
gotta be vigilant nowadays. or get a wheelgun.
luckily our apartment entrance has a gate. that doesn't stop the supermarkets from throwing their flyers on our stoop. and the car services and some restaurants manage to slip business cards and menus into our mailbox. to their credit, we haven't put up any 'no menus' or similar signage. but should we really have to?
there should be a way to turn in the offending materials and said businesses fined according to how much unwanted items turn up in said collection. i understand small businesses need to market, but if i'm interested in getting delivery from a place, the chances are good i've already picked up the menu myself when passing by.
The Menu King works for a company that posts menus online so that they can be found by anyone, at any time, in any place, thus diminishing the need (is there really even a need, though?) for paper menus. If delivery menus are eradicated, he and we would all benefit.
Another option would be to print out a letter to the restaurant in a large font size and tape it to their window or front door, asking them to please stop putting trash in and around our homes.