This week a Utah woman, Judy Cox, found herself offended by some t-shirts she saw for sale at the mall. By now you’ve surely heard that Ms. Cox purchased every one of the offensive shirts her local Pac-Sun store had in stock – $567 worth.

Sometimes The Best Thing To Be Is Quiet

Judy, Judy, Judy. What were you thinking? (KTVX)

The shirts, while not exactly pornographic, do tend to objectify women – and that’s never cool. And with the direction I’m going to take, I want to make this clear – the type of person who would wear a shirt like this is also never cool.

But poor, passionate Ms. Cox set back her cause and her checking account* with her decision. How many of us were aware of these shirts before Ms. Cox bought them and began her media blitz? I’d never even heard of Pac-Sun. While Ms. Cox succeeded in keeping that group of shirts from being displayed at her local mall, they are still available on the web and at other Pac-Sun shops. It isn’t a great leap to suppose that Judy made the shirts bigger sellers than they were before she pointed them out.

Even if some of those shirts sold before they were newsworthy, we all know that most of them would have been “lost in the laundry” or perhaps would have met with “an unfortunate bleach accident” as soon as moms around the country got their hands on them.

But all is not lost. Ms. Cox created a new economic model that I encourage all of you to take advantage of.

How To Cash In On People Like Judy

From today on, the idea of buying up an objectionable product to “protect” the public will be known as Cox Blocking.

As I’ve already established, being a Cox Blocker isn’t smart because it simply calls attention to the commodity that you’re trying to eliminate. However, I urge everyone to consider Cox Blocking, not as a model to force your personal ethics upon others, but as an investment opportunity.

You see, Judy Cox has set a new standard for people like her. I foresee others becoming Cox Blockers to enforce whatever they decide morality is and gain status within their social circles. I urge those of you who don’t intend to follow Judy’s example to follow mine.

I’m going to open a store and fill it with items that are somewhat offensive. I’ll corner the market on t-shirts with shady slogans. I’ll stock music with objectionable lyrics. If an item might offend, I’ll make it available in quantities that the average Cox Blocker can afford to buy my stores out of…for the good of kids everywhere. Cox Blockers will leave my stores with boxes of naughty shirts and bawdy songs. I’ll leave my stores with boxes of Cox Blocker cash. We’ll all leave happy.

Cox Blocking is never cool, but as long as people are willing to invest their money to keep people from thinking for themselves there will be people who will trade on that willingness.

“There is no such thing as bad publicity.”  – P.T. Barnum

*Ms. Cox has said “…I’ll let their corporate office figure out what to do with them when I return them on day 59 of a 60-day return policy.” I wonder what motivation Pac-Sun has to follow their policy? They wouldn’t be accepting a return to keep a good customer happy, they’d be rewarding a busybody.