Nothing is as it seems. My father said this to me when I was a small boy, or actually he said, “Tim, don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see.” This pearl of wisdom, as negative and pessimistic as it seems, still rings true today. Take, for example, just about any fast food commercial you have ever been forced to sit through. That gigantic, juicy burger with the fresh lettuce (shown in slow motion, drops of crystal clear water shimmering in the sun), the fresh tomato (also shown in slow motion, being cut individually with the obligatory shimmering water) placed reverently on the fresh bun (not shown in slow motion, oddly enough), and stuffed into some yokels waiting mouth, after he or she gazes at it from all sides, with the look of a rapist blazing in their eyes. An orgasm erupts as they take the first bite, sort of a premature burgerlation if you ask me, but it doesn’t really matter, because the commercial ends at this point and we don’t get to see what poor sap on the set of this production gets to clean up the mess.
After your brain gets somewhat warped by this manipulation, you get a bit…well…hungry. You think a hamburger sounds pretty good right now, especially since your wife, who frequently looks up the word “cook” in the dictionary but still doesn’t understand the meaning, has been trying a “new healthy eating way of cooking”, which promises drastic weight loss, energy akin to a nuclear reactor, and will erase wrinkles and whiten yellowing teeth.
“All the girls at work are doing it,” she declares, “and are astounded at the results.”
“Astounded?” I ask. “Really? They actually used the word ‘astounded’?”
She ignores me, knowing full well that nobody uses the word astounded in any situation, except when it comes to advertising. The new cooking system required a small investment, of course. A paltry $300.00 for all the utensils, pans and secret recipes. Not including the food.
“You’re gonna love it,” she promises. “We are going to lose the weight and look good!”
“That assumes that I look bad now. Are you calling me fat?”
She paused in her frenzied movements for a half a beat and said, “Everyone can lose a couple of pounds, no matter what.”
“Oh yeah? What about those starving children that are on TV wanting us to send them eighteen bucks a month?”
She held one of the utensils like a junkie with a knife trapped in an alley, homicide flaring in her eyes. “You…will…love…it.”
I should know better than to argue this stuff, but if past “healthy” meals that my wife has prepared are any indication, I at least have to make the effort, if only to appease the screaming complaints from my taste buds. Of course, just like that delicious looking burger that starts out looking so good on TV but ends up as disappointment and indigestion, the healthy eating system only made us become more aware of the lack of art work in the bathroom, and that I still haven’t bought a magazine rack so I can at least read something while the alien in my stomach decides to come out and terrorize the world.
“Maybe the system is designed to clean out all of the bad toxins and stuff in your colon,” she said hopefully.
“Susan,” I said gently, “I had to check to see if I was flushing my colon down the toilet.” I paused.
“Honestly, I couldn’t tell. Are you gonna tell me what was in that stuff? It tasted like what that old wool rug we left out the rain that one time smelled like. What was in that stuff that could possibly cause such a violet…reaction?”
She was opening her mouth when a tremendous belch erupted; a bright look of panic captured her face. She managed, “Ah, ah, ah…” before she ran toward the bathroom. There’s 300 bucks, right down the toilet. I don’t harbor ill will towards my wife for trying these crazy schemes, I understand her battle with getting older; after all, I don’t look or feel anything like I did when I was 20, but just like everything else, a good-looking cover doesn’t necessarily make a good book. The frustrating part is that my wife is very beautiful, and not fat in any way shape or form, but she still gets caught up in the fanaticism of the weight loss machine. Every day we are bombarded with this form of mind control, and it is purposely directed towards people like my wife. It is a clear what they are trying to do, and I wish there was a way to stop it.
Some of the advertising I simply don’t understand. There is a commercial running now for an online dating service that really baffles me. The scene is set up with two good-looking young women talking, and the one asks the other what happened with her office romance. The scene flips to the girl sauntering into the copy room where the object of her affection is standing with a shocked look on his face. The camera gets some quick shots of the other office workers listening to the two of them going at it. They both walk out of the copy room, muttering excuses of the toner being low, or the copier had a paper jam. The camera shows the guy’s ass with two hand prints on it. The odd part of this was that everyone in the office knows what was going on in that copy room, and they just sort of gape at the two lovers. This was perhaps the stupidest commercial I have ever experienced, since after this the camera once again goes back to the two young women, and the one that had the sexual encounter at her job says, “Oh no, I don’t think my office romance turned out. From now on, I’ll go to this online dating website when I want to get a quickie in a copy room.” They both giggle knowingly, and start looking at the pictures of the good-looking guys on the website.
What? Is this a dating website where people are earnestly looking for romance and perhaps love, or is it just a site for people to get laid? Look, call a spade a spade and get on with it. If you have a website for people to get together for casual sex, that’s fine; that seems to be what you are advertising, but that is certainly a far cry from romance and love.
That’s not to say that advertising isn’t effective, especially when it comes to food. There is an Italian restaurant chain that advertises quite frequently in our area. Mostly it is the commercial showing the girls getting together to catch up while they scarf down endless soup, salad and bread sticks. They look so damned happy while they are there, giving you the impression that if it wasn’t for this restaurant, they would never see each other, or at least see each other in a good light. You can imagine this conversation: “What do you mean you don’t want to go to lunch? We were supposed to catch up on our lives, for God’s sake! Don’t you care about me anymore? You fucking bitch! Have you been sleeping with my husband? Has he been on that dating website again? I bet you were turned on by that commercial with the guy and the girl in the copy room weren’t you? You goddam whore! Stay away from my husband!”
I fell for the advertising though, when they showed the cheese stuffed shells covered in white sauce. We had to go, and, as usual, we were disappointed. It wasn’t too bad if you like warmed up wet cardboard covered with garlic salt and half-and-half, but certainly not as good as the commercial led me to believe.
After a considerable time in the bathroom, my wife is now looking at the healthy cooking system, a pained expression on her face. I don’t know if it’s from the realization that she wasted 300 dollars on this crap or from her sore butt, but I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut. She looks at the cooking paraphernalia and then to me, waiting to see if I make a smart ass comment. When I don’t, she feels safe enough to ask, “What do we do with this stuff?”
“Well, dear, if you advertise it right, I’m sure someone will want to buy it.”
She brightens at the thought of at least getting some of her money back, and waddles upstairs as best as she can to get on Craigslist. Me, I gently sit down on the couch and turn the TV on, hoping that there might be a commercial for the antidote.
