We get a tremendous number of press releases and announcements from a variety of companies; all hoping to catch the eye of an editor and gain some publicity for their cause or product. Many of these releases have nothing to do with the workers’ compensation industry. It just seems we’ve landed on mail lists as a media company and are included in broad distributions run by PR firms and other scummy ne’er do wells. Most of the topics are pretty weak. Some are downright stupid. But a few of them are clever, or in today’s case, dare I say “ballsy.”
And those ballsy one’s sometimes end up being covered as real news in this blog.
Adult products company ImLive has offered 220 gallons of personal lubricant to the cities of New York and Los Angeles to use in an effort to prevent injury of protesters that will no doubt turn out in the wake of the results of the presidential election. The company claims that their lube, applied to light poles in affected areas, will prevent people from climbing said light poles, thereby reducing the risk of having them fall and go boom.
I don’t know about the protesters and light poles, but some of us are probably going to need that lube when results at the voting polls are finally determined.
Anywhoo, in a statement from the company, Adrian Stoneman, Vice President of Business said, “We wanted to extend a helping hand and ensure people’s safety while they took to the streets tonight and want to make sure no one is climbing street poles and inevitably getting hurt. To thwart any attempts at scaling these erect structures, we would love to deploy our vats of lube to New York City and Los Angeles so that they can lube their dry poles. We have (4) 55 gallon drums of lube read (sic) to go. We hope these cities take us up on our generous offer.”
The release from the company was very clear that all comments be attributed to Mr. Adrian Stoneman, Vice President of Business. I assume this will make his mother, who probably tells her friends her son is in the petroleum industry, very proud. I suspect they would have offered comments from the company’s Director of Research and Development, but their fingers kept sliding off the keyboard.
ImLive even offered a brief Q&A session with Mr. Adrian Stoneman, Vice President of Business, in order to help the cities understand the importance of lubing their poles. When asked, “Why 220 gallons,” he answered “the more, the merrier. We want to ensure that every dry pole in NYC and LA is properly lubed up in preparation for tonight.”
He also offered instructions on how the cities could lubricate their light poles. I won’t repeat that section here but suffice it to say that big poles are apparently best lubricated in much the same way as considerably smaller poles.
Mr. Adrian Stoneman, Vice President of Business, also indicated that the formal offer was made to both cities through two tweets. Personally, I have to say that is not much of a formal offer; especially since the image included with the tweets shows a largely empty warehouse. Business in the personal lubricant industry must be brisk. That makes sense, since it is, after all, an election year.
@LADPHQ we have 220 gallons of lube we’d like to send you to lather up your poles in preparation for any unrest and/or celebrations tonight!#electionday #2020elections pic.twitter.com/zUnESebEyn
— ImLive (@ImLiveCom) November 3, 2020
For their part, there has been no word on whether New York City or Los Angeles has taken ImLive up on their generous offer. They seem unlikely to do so, since the intent was to prevent injury of rioters, and both cities have pretty much insisted that they only have “peaceful protesters.”
At any rate, protecting people in any job is what the workers’ compensation industry is concerned with, even if the position is that of rioter. And since there is pretty clear evidence that some of these peaceful protesters are being paid for their peacefully destructive acts, there had better be coverage in place for them. It doesn’t matter who is ultimately declared the next President; these rioters will no doubt report to work regardless.
Some people will think it is a stretch to make this connection. That’s fair. Regular readers know that I have occasionally referenced using a “big rubber mallet’ in order to get a story to fit within the workers’ comp narrative. The real lesson here is that a big rubber mallet isn’t always needed. Apparently using ImLive personal lubricants works just as well.