What am I trying to say?

Listen up, you forkers…am I inviting people to eat at restaurants more often?

If I am the Colorado Restuarant Association, I am. They launched a new ad campaign inviting people to Fork The Recession.

Well Fork this CRA: We know what you really meant to say. So either say it, or pick another slogan. The forkin’ forker Governor Bill Ritter and forkin’ Denver mayor John Hickenlooper (bwaahahaa… Hickenlooper!) support the campaign.

We invite every family to take some time after church every Sunday to Fork Off. During the week, find a day that you all can fork together!

Of course, the restaurant biz paints a mother-forkin’ rosy picture of how important they are to the forkin’ economy.

The attention-getting tagline is a lead-in to convey that patronizing restaurants feeds the local economy in significant ways that people might not normally consider, says CRA President and CEO Pete Meersman. The state’s restaurant industry employs about 234,000 people and contributes $570 million annually in state and local taxes that support critical government services, he points out. Furthermore, farmers and other businesses are reliant on restaurants, and restaurants are local businesses that are major contributors to community projects and charities.

Aren’t these the same people that pay ten cents an hour and we pay most of their wages? And don’t these forker’s just take 10% of our money and give it to charity? Or sell us a paper cut out of a shoe and transfer the dough to the charity?

Fork the news!

“We came up with this as a way to tell people to turn off the national news and get out and visit a restaurant,” says Meersman. “We want people to realize that every dollar spent on dining out turns into $1.30 in spending in other businesses. And conversely, that not eating out means less money for the services they rely on, and might mean that a local restaurant can’t afford to buy uniforms for the youth baseball team or sponsor a charity.”

Let’s get focused here people: if you have a great deal on a pizza and call it a BFD, it’s not a Big Forkin’ Deal. If you want to have people change their attitudes about eating at a restaurant, don’t tell them to Fork it.

And while I’m at it, I think this Sponge Bob commercial is just wrong. Burger King singing about the butts of women to sell hamburgers?

Ah fork it, I guess I’m out of touch. I’m not “urban.”

The fake midget on a tractor is supposed to appeal to me: “rural.”