Have you ever noticed that what advertisers say, and what they truly mean, are two entirely different things? While we beg for truth and transparency – in our government, in our families, in our daily lives, our country’s entire economy is built on mild to wild fabrications, and we’re buying into and adapting it.
Ask a teenager how their day is going. You get a one-word answer – “good”, “fine”, “ok”. Allow me translate for you from a range of possibilities. “WiFi just went down and I might as well be stranded on a distant planet.” “My teachers hate me.” “My clothes, hair, face, and everything else about me is all wrong,” “My basketball team hasn’t won a game in weeks. I don’t know why I bother.” “I just got a text from Jessica, and Sean doesn’t really like me after all. I’m going to move to a cave in Alaska.” (So you think, are they sitting at the table reserved for refugees at lunch? Who are Jessica and Sean? How did I not know about this? What kind of parent am I? One word and your world is upended.)
There’s a difference between mystery and fabrication. Mystery just implies that something remains hidden or may not be as it seems. Fabrication, on the other hand, gives us information that is misleading, designed to lead us in false directions.
For example:
When the sales clerk says to you, “That looks great on you – it’s really your color.” What they’re really saying is, “It’s two sizes too small and makes you look like a pork sausage, but I work on commission and it’s been a slow week.”
When a real estate agent tells you a property “has investment potential”,what they’re really saying is “this area’s kind of sketchy, but it may improve down the road. You may or may not live long enough to see it.”
When a pharmaceutical company says “We may be able to help some patients with the cost”, what they’re really sayings is “This is wildly overpriced and the good news is we’re making boatloads of money, so you may have to sell all of your worldly possessions and several children into slavery to afford it.”
When Mr. Trump says, “This is going to be the greatest . . . . . ever.” What he’s really saying is, “I have no idea if this will work or not. It’s way more difficult than I thought.”
When a website tells me they’re “shocked that your shopping cart is empty”, what they’re really saying is “we’ve had a tech team working for hours on this feature, and if you don’t buy something now, their work is all for naught. When I’m notified that I’m,“ a Presidential Preferred Customer!”, what they’re really saying is, “You’ve bought a lot of crap from us, but in reality you have as much chance of winning as Kim Jong Un.” That Presidential Preferred Customer title is just something an intern in the marketing department came up with over morning coffee, because there are already thirty-two million ‘Platinum Preferred.” I guess I can stop practicing my squeal of delight in anticipation of my big check arriving. It was hurting my throat anyway. With my luck, they’d arrive while I was out and my wife wouldn’t answer the doorbell thinking it was just the UPS driver. And, of course, when they tell me I need “one more purchase to maintain my status”, what they’re really saying is “Those 200 foot garden hoses and the throw pillows with wolf and moose faces aren’t moving like lightning, so the buyer has been transferred to Mongolia.”
When the supermarket advertises “economy cuts”of meat, what they’re really telling you is that “your dentures will need a complete overhaul following consumption.” Similarly, when the waitperson in a restaurant tells you they have “several exciting daily specials”, that means “the chef is off-loading everything at or near its sell-by date”, or that yesterday’s special didn’t fly out of the kitchen and has been “rebranded”.
When a store tells you that they are having “an inventory reduction”, they’re really saying, “We’re moving all the crap nobody wanted, and the next stop is for this stuff is Goodwill.” (Again, the buyer is now operating a handcart in a warehouse far from civilization.)
When a property seller calls something “vintage”, it’s usually old and needs a lot of fixing. There’s a huge difference between “vintage” and “vintage-look”. One is made to look old, the other really is old and most likely needs to be replaced. As a side note, in my experience, the phrases “handy man special” and “money pit” are synonymous. The seller is not typically talking about handmade paneling brought over from Balmoral or chandeliers rescued from Versailles. When they tell you that a feature “gives it character”, they’re saying that somebody completely devoid of taste slapped up some ill-conceived, garish wallpaper border or tile pattern that’s best treated with a wrecking bar or sledgehammer. Or that somebody fancied themselves an accomplished carpenter trying out their new table saw and went nuts in the parlor. When that same seller tells you something is “cozy”, it’s way too small for human habitation. A cozy kitchen, for example, has no room to actually prepare food. Often, the dishwasher or refrigerator is down the hall and left into the garage. Likewise, a “cozy” bedroom doesn’t have room for an actual bed. “Cozy” is often accompanied by “easy to take care of”. What they’re really telling you is that you can stand in the middle of the room with the vacuum cleaner and hit all the corners without stretching.
When someone in a discussion tells you, “I see why you’d think that”,they’re really saying “I have no idea how you arrived at that misguided conclusion, or how your brain scrambled things so badly.” On the plus side, this olive branch is meant to spare someone’s feelings. When someone in a political discussion says “It’s good for everyone“, that means it’s good for them and they’re not particularly concerned about anyone not like them. Similarly, when someone “means well”, it usually implies that they were unable to think through their actions sufficiently to foresee the bungled, sometimes catastrophic results. Like the guy smiling holding a blowtorch, with three city blocks of devastation behind him. The implication is that there is at work a lethal combination of a heart of gold and brainpower of sand.
When a teacher says to you “that was a good try”, they’re really saying that you’re, well, not correct. Sadly, it also gives some weight to the implication that effort outweighs results. Rather like the airplane pilot that tells their passengers that they’re going to try to fly them to Pittsburgh. That’s not what I want to hear. When a job supervisor tells you something was a “good try”, it probably means that you need to dust off the resume. The pink slip is in the printer.
When a customer tells the customer service representative that “I followed the instructions carefully”, what they’re really saying is “I looked at the picture on the box and thought I could figure it out myself. Consequently, the drone propellers are on the bottom. In a variation of this, a taxpayer tells the IRS that “I keep detailed records and receipts”, they usually mean “I have no idea – I just kind of estimated.”
When a major corporation refers to something as a “cost of doing business”, what they’re really saying is “our profits didn’t quite meet expectations, so we’re passing it on to all you customers. It’ll be hidden in your bill somewhere and with any luck, you won’t notice it.” This technique is particularly useful if, for example, the company dumped thousands of gallons of toxic waste into a river, and they’re now required to clean it up. Boeing hit a slight speed bump with its technology. They have said that they’re really sorry, which goes a long way with me. Now, they’ll add the costs of lawsuits on to the new planes on order with major airlines, who in turn will pass it on to us with added fees to recline seats, bathroom “flushing fees”, or use of the overhead compartments. These may also be called “surcharges”. That means, “We want you to think it’s completely legitimate and required to keep us our profits up.”
So, my faithful readers, make sure that you’re sensitive to what the commercial voice-over is really telling you. That life-saving new medication with twelve disclaimers at the end may not be for you. Check with your doctor. When you ask for an opinion or for something and the response is, “I’m thinking . . . . . .” The answer, of course, is . . . no.
I'm Thinking...No! 