Many of us depend on Walgreens for the last minute items our families need in a pinch, be it medicine in the middle of the night, school science project-deadline supplies, or that extra can of fried onion sprinkles for grandma’s yummy casserole. That corner store is always close-by, dependable, and friendly.

But this year, the always reliable retailer has sadly gone potty mouth in its celebration of the Savior’s birthday, and it is certainly not a good look for them.

The Daily Citizen will spare you at least one more exposure to dirty talk by not linking to the commercials. But these widely aired television advertisements try to be too clever in showing various moms and dads tending to last-minute Christmas duties. Each finds themselves in that all too familiar fix of “not-enough-wrapping-paper” or “just-one-gift-short” of a truly Merry Christmas for everyone. In their frustration, each mom or dad drops a verbal crudity. But they are cut off at the first syllable of said-word only to be followed by a faithful Walgreens employee happily calling their name (which “cleverly” starts with the first letter of the interrupted potty-word) handing mom or dad a helpful bag containing the instant solution to the language-inducing problem.

Christmas crisis averted, thanks to Walgreens.

Dependable family- and community-based companies can go overboard when they try to be too clever in their advertising. That is precisely the nature of this misstep by Walgreens and it is disappointing. It has not gone unnoticed by anyone that our public life is getting increasingly more crude. So-called “locker-room talk” is now regular fun-fare on the Hallmark Channel during happy holiday specials.

Who thought this was a fun idea?

Like our teens and tweens need just one more reminder that there is language out there that good, mature people try to avoid. Daily Citizen staffers have addressed this trend toward our culture’s increasing comfortableness with potty-talk in the public square, here and here. It needs to stop and good people need to start objecting to it when we hear it on the playground, at restaurants, sporting events, and coffee shops.

Our elite culture-keepers are absolutely obsessed with the purity of the physical environment. We should all be concerned with caring for God’s creation. But these creative elites appear to have no qualms whatsoever at throwing verbal and visual garbage right into our own faces through the windows of our screens and devices. There is a human and social environment that is just as powerful and consequential as the natural environment to human well-being and it should be cared for just as carefully. Otherwise pro-community companies should be mindful of the garbage and toxic materials they so easily toss into it!

If you agree, you can kindly share your thoughts with Walgreen management. Remind them of the need to be consistently environmentally friendly with the words and images they chose for their advertising. Good citizenship demands that all garbage should be properly disposed of. Those who carelessly toss it directly at our families should be reminded to do better.

Photo from Shutterstock.