Curse Blue Cross and their Drowning Babies

The BBQ Pit
1

So yesterday I’m going to work, calmly weaving through traffic and listening to the radio. All is peaceful in the world.

Then I pull up alongside one of the city busses. This one is painted with an advertisement… not an ad in a little box on the side of the bus, but the whole side of the bus. Even over the windows. It’s like a big mural, and it’s pretty cool.

This one is different, it’s not one I’ve seen before. Pretty shades of blue, I’m liking it already. Looks like a swimming pool, from underneath, but I have to pay attention to the red light ahead…

Oh My God - it’s a picture of a baby underwater! My whole body tenses, I get a big shot of adrenaline. Every cell in my body screams NOOOOO!!! Male protection instinct kicks in, and I’m willing to throw myself into traffic to save the baby’s life.

I know it’s near Halloween, but I hadn’t expected this type of horror pictures so soon.

At the stop light, I get a better look at the mural. It’s an advertisement for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, (thus the blue colors) and features a 10-year old swimming with an infant. Oh My GOD that 10-year old is using the infant like a kickboard!! She’s holding the kid underwater, out in front of her, as she swims through the water. How inhuman can that be?! Have they no common sense?!

Has fucking Blue Cross gone completely nuts? They’re not even showing anything worthwhile with the ad. I can imagine the board meeting: “We need something with a lot of blue, like an underwater shot.” “Oh - and healthy people. We are HEALTH insurance, so we should show healthy people.” “Children always look healthy, and babies are always cute.” “Healthy baby, healthy child, under blue water… that’s it.”

I used to teach swimming lessons for YMCA, and we had a lesson for an infant/parent swim. Basically a rip-off, you give the YMCA money to let you play with your baby in the pool. Always keep the baby’s head out of the water, because their ear tubes aren’t fully formed, and DUH the babies don’t know enough to hold their breath. There was a trick in which you could blow a puff of air in the baby’s face to get it to gasp in surprise, and then quickly get his/her face wet because they’ll be breathing out immediately afterward.

But you don’t hold your baby underwater.

And you sure as hell don’t let your 10-year old kid do it.

How fucking stupid can a corporation be?!? (don’t answer that)

I should also add that I worked as a beach lifeguard for 7 years while in high school and college. I lost count of how many babies I pulled out of the water. Mom and dad would let the kid play in the sand by the water’s edge, and be relatively close by. The kid would stand up, take 5 steps into the water and naturally fall over in 1 foot of water. But of course a baby can’t stand up easily, and will just squirm around underwater while mom and dad are distracted for just a moment.

So if anyone is especially trained to jump into action whenever they see a baby underwater, it would be me. But hell, I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t have a similar response.

PostScript: I just saw the TV ad yesterday as well. 10:00 pm, I’m half-asleep and ready to go to bed. Then here comes the scene with the kid swimming through the water, using the baby like a kickboard. Instantaneously, I feel like I’ve been jolted with electricity, pumped full of adrenaline, and I’m ready to jump in after them. Took quite some time to get to sleep.

Fucking Blue Cross – get some common sense.

2

BCBS commercials do tend to be a bit surreal. Unfortunately, you’re also going to be seeing a lot more of them because the federal government is about to start its open enrollment season, and BCBS is a major player.

I used to work for BCBS of Texas, and let me tell you, I’ve never seen so much blue in my life, at least not since I joined the Navy.

Robin

3

It’s all about “branding” and “image” and “traffic driving”. From a 1999 ad campaign.

In other words, “made ya look”.

Harrisburg, PA? Capital Blue Cross? Here’s who to call if ya wanna complain that they made ya look. :smiley:

http://www.capbluecross.com/who/contacts.htm

4

I haven’t seen the add, so I don’t know how old this baby is, but I will point out that newborns do “know” to hold their breath under water. They also “know” how to swim. It is an instinctual activity and is very cool to watch. I’ve seen film of it (with, of course, adults off camera ready to pull the baby out of the water after a few seconds.) They lose this ability by the time they hit six months or so, though. Maybe this advertisement uses a photograph from one of these experiments? With the other child added after the fact? (In which case it would still be disturbing, visually, but not actually putting the infant at risk.)

5

Boy. That Nirvana album cover must really ruin your day.

6

voguevixen, that’s exactly what I thought as soon as I read the first part of the OP.

7

Robinh thanks for pointing that out. I have dozens of pictures of myself as a newborn, happily holding my breath and swimming in the pool at the apartment complex where my family lived at the time. Maybe the OP is confused because older babies DO forget those skills unless they use them.

8

VogueVixen, yes that Nirvana album gives me the willies. But then there’s a lot of rock albums that have grotesque, disgusting pictures on the front for shock value.

Somehow, I think the side of a bus should be a little more presentable.

And I know about the “babies can swim” claim. I’d certainly take my (hypothetical) toddler into the pool and play around – but for god’s sake I’d never dunk her. And I’d NEVER let my (hypothetical) 10-year old swim with her.

Sick minds. Sick sick sick.

9

I felt the same way seeing these ads. Course, I got three kids, and since my near-death drowning when I was a kid, I go bezerk about water safety.

I still remember a few years back. Wife’s in pool holding my baby daughter. She’s bobbing around, making sure that the kid’s head is above water. Meanwhile, I barely restraining myself from hooking said wife with a poll and yanking her out.

“Dear,” I said. “Be careful not to slip.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” she said. "Nothing’s . . . "

blurp Down they both go. Her feet slip on the pool’s bottom, and there’s my daughter under three feet of water.

You can imagine what I’m like around a pool now.

10

I felt the same way seeing these ads. Course, I got three kids, and since my near-death drowning when I was a kid, I go bezerk about water safety.

I still remember a few years back. Wife’s in pool holding my infant daughter. She’s bobbing around, making sure that the kid’s head is above water. Meanwhile, I barely restraining myself from hooking said wife with a poll and yanking her out.

“Dear,” I said. “Be careful not to slip.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” she said. "Nothing’s . . . "

blurp Down they both go. Her feet slip on the pool’s bottom, and there’s my daughter under three feet of water. Mom bounces up, and kid sputters and coughs before commencing to cry hysterically.

You can imagine what I’m like around a pool now.

11

Sorry for the DP; it look liked the post hung up halfway through the send and I clicked the stop button and tried again. I’ll be more careful in the future.

12

So, can we assume that your screen name doesn’t mean “fish”, then?