Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," celestial infomercials for deserving deities! Are you feeling cranky or blue? Let our pantheons work for you!
Most of you probably did not watch the Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series last night. (Yay!) However, I bet you did watch Barack Obama's infomercial on his qualities as a presidential candidate.
It was John McCain's idea to call the spot an infomercial, but doggone, no other valid definition exists.
My daughter The Heir has two endearing qualities:
1. She is fascinated by advertising of all sorts, especially infomercials.
2. She is as gullible a human being as you'll ever find anywhere.
Last night she called right after the Phils won the Series. She lives in a co-ed college dormitory, so you can imagine the mayhem I could hear in the background.
I asked The Heir if she had watched Obama's infomercial.
She said, "His WHAAAAT?"
Oh, readers. Can you blame me?
I told her that Barack Obama was offering a set of carving knives that would slice through paper and never need to be sharpened. That he demonstrated how to comb every last hair out of his pet Persian. That he revealed the secret to his tight abs and made bruschetta from scratch using a Magic Bullet.
She believed this much, so I went on.
I told her Candidate Obama would show her how to get rid of those pesky chin hairs without tweezing. I said his miracle vitamins would help her build muscle mass, study harder, see better, and turn blonde. I told her Candidate Obama would send her a free CD showing everything she needed to know about how to buy and sell on Ebay.
She believed this too.
"But wait," I told her "..... THERE'S MORE!"
So I told her that a vote for Candidate Obama would bring an end to people with no health insurance, a restoration of labor unions, the return of outsourced jobs to America, drastically reduced college tuition bills, a complete cessation of lobbying on behalf of fatcat corporations, green energy, and world peace.
She finally caught on that I was pulling her leg.
Let's face it. Whoever wins the presidential race inherits a mess worse than Great-Granny's hoarder house. America didn't fall into the toilet in one day, and it's going to take more than one day to drag it out again ... if indeed the task can be done. I happen to think Mr. Obama has a better chance of extricating the U.S. from the crapper, but while he's doing it he's going to look like he's spinning his wheels instead of bringing change.
And when the change comes, it's not going to work any better than the Magic Bullet, which looks great on t.v. but has serious flaws in the kitchen. So before you call those operators who are standing by to take your credit card information, don't get your hopes up too high. Our previous presidents have allowed cockroaches to run rampant through Washington, and extermination is not a perfect science.
I would love to believe that part about the college tuition, though. Where's the phone? Where's my credit card? Just a few easy payments...
