For a good time, just eat more crackers

HEIDI GAISER

The good people at Ritz crackers sent me a snazzy folder last week that contained a survey and analysis of the importance of fun in the lives of Americans.

Though I have personally never heard anyone in real life describe a Ritz cracker as "fun," Ritz claims that many people have "a relationship based on fun" with their Ritz crackers, so the cracker people set out to track the importance of fun in the lives of average Americans.

It's hard to believe that the results, taken from a 15-minute phone survey of 1,000 people, give a true representation of what constitutes fun for the average American. Then again, one can't help but wonder how normal the surveyees are if they're willing to devote themselves to 15 minutes of questions from Ritz cracker people.

Some of the shocking results:

. The average American spends six hours a day having at least a little fun and nearly one in five Americans averages 10 hours a day of fun. There must be a very loose definition of "fun" floating around our society that encompasses driving to work, grocery shopping, staring at a computer, doing laundry and feeding a whining cat 100 times a day.

. 82 percent of people plan on having even more fun in 2008 than they had in 2007. With the help of my desk calendar, I personally have penciled in less fun this year, but sometimes schedules change.

. And (surprise) Americans who eat Ritz crackers are more likely to say they are very fun people (43 percent) to be around compared to people who do not eat Ritz crackers (36 percent). Surprising news from a Ritz-sponsored survey. Not that we should be cynical about these things.

There are also top 10 lists of least and most fun things. The Ritz people must have listed a variety of things and the respondents either gave thumbs up or down on their fun-ness.

The most-fun list has a few problems.

Being a parent of a young child is at No. 1, followed by a good meal, kissing, babies, puppies, women, a spouse's cooking, money, reading and movies.

First, it's time to get over the advertising-world obsession with food as a source of "fun." Who says after the seventh-rated fun thing, a meal cooked by a spouse, "Thanks honey, that was fun."

No one in the history of the world has ever asked someone who went out for a fancy restaurant meal, "Was the food fun?" (Of course, most of your better restaurants don't serve Ritz crackers, so maybe they are missing out on something there.)

And "women" are fun? Some are, some aren't. Just another example of the blatant sexism of the snack-food industry.

The top 10 least-fun things were, in descending order: snakes, gambling, dieting, watching awards programs, politics, doctors, reality TV, e-mail, public speaking and morning radio-show hosts.

The omissions from this least-fun list are startling. According to this survey, it could be deducted that Americans consider reality TV less fun than cleaning bathrooms or painting a 12-foot ceiling.

And a few contradictions - gambling is less fun than dieting, but people flock to Las Vegas (evidently for their spiritual growth but not the fun) while a fun city based on food deprivation has yet to be created.

And a person could go years without running across a snake and, should they do so, the usual way of describing one is rarely "Get that snake away from me - it's no fun."

Of course, making sense is of no consequence to the Ritz people, who only created this survey to have someone talk about their product, and as a way to launch their "Open For Fun" campaign, "an integrated marketing program that extends beyond the tangible features of Ritz."

Because really, what is more important in a cracker purchase than the intangibles? Someone should probably launch a survey to find out.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com