IT PAYS TO BE A GOOD SAMARITAN

You may have noticed recently in the Dallas Morning News that there is now a section labeled “Happy Ads,” a section where people can bear glad tidings. Some ads are happy birthday wishes (“Happy Birthday Handsome One. Peaches Loves Rex Evermore.”); some are light-hearted in-jokes (“Jack! We were just kidding about the facelift”); and some are downright cryptic (“D.D. – No mashers at my house, just big claws.”). But many of them are just general good wishes (“Have a nice day” and “Have an extra good day” and “Have a nice day every day.”) Though the ads are inexpensive -two lines for ten days for $7 -we thought it interesting that so many good Samaritans were willing to pay seven bucks to wish us well.

Alas, as it turns out, there’s a mercenary hitch. It seems the News has something called a “rate holder ad,” whereby if a business advertiser runs a two-line ad every day for a month at the regular rate, he gets a reduced rate on all of his other advertising. So, all of those “nice day” ads are actually little money savers. We should have known.