Hey, I like getting mail too. Who doesn’t? I get happy when I get new catalogs from the Franklin Mint.
Anyone remember something called Perfect Hair? Or Secret Hair? Hair pieces that were clipped into your own hair to make it fuller, or longer? It would be good for someone with very thinning hair. However, one of them was hosted by that guy, Mike-the one with the sweaters and the glasses who acted overly excited?
There’s a possiblity we may be close kin, betenoir. My well-educated and otherwise scarifyingly sensible mother adored catalog purchases. Lillian Vernon alone fuelled entire yard sales for me and my sister. A few things were actually useful but most were just instant clutter. Weird plastic bathroom organizers, decorative little boxes that the hinges broke w/ the first use, purse stuff, e.g. combination lipstick/mirror case with built in light. (I don’t wear lipstick.)
You’re right. The big thing was she enjoyed looking forward to something fun coming in the mail.
Veb
If the product is kitchen related, the audience performers must be wearing aprons in case all 200 of them have to come up on stage and cook something.
Or: “Call in the next 60 minutes and you’ll pay only $150.00 instead of $200.00!!! But only if you call in the next 60 minutes. Or mail your check for $150.00 to House O’crap P.O. Box 1090 Idiotsville Montana”
I’m worried they’d send my check back to me with a note: “We’re terribly sorry but we didn’t receive your correspondence within 60 minutes of our broadcast…”
[sub]My terrible dark secret: I’m actually attracted to that food saver vacuum packaging machine. I’d have bought one by now if my kitchen wasn’t already reaching critical mass from the sheer number of gadgets in there.[/sub]
I have to admit I’m tempted to get a few. My daughter has long thick hair, and she wraps it in a towel every night. I have shoulder length hair, and I do water aerobics a few times a week, and I’m supposed to have a shower cap or something similar covering my hair. However, I am not particularly eager to give these TV folks my Visa number, as I figure I’ll be able to buy these things, as others have said, at WalMart or KMart in a few months at a much lower price. Twenty bucks for a cheap piece of cloth and elastic? No thanks.
Well, hell, if you’re gonna be truthful about this…
I’m still use the Ronco food dehydrator my mom bought me years ago. Kicks ass for drying herbs, making bananna and apple chips and (blush) jerky. Yeah, yeah, read the stuff about higher temps, etc. but the general idea is to dry food. It’s a hardware store solution in a Williams Sonoma world. Stupid, tacky but it works well.
Oh, gersh.
Veb
My friend apparently has a FoodSaver. I haven’t used it, but I can tell you that it’s a lot bigger than it looks in the commercial (probably a good thing, though, for all those times you have to, uh, VacuSave your sweater…)
And, since I want to avoid a total thread hijack (well, sort of…for me, any response is a good response, to be honest) I’ll post a few more infomercial trends:
Watch out for really high prices being marked down to fool you. For example “What would you expect to pay for this rock? $500? Well, we’re not going to give it to you for $500. No, we’re not even going to give it to you for $400. Or $300, or $200. I will personally well you this rock for only four easy payments of $39.99! And if you call within the next 5 minutes, I’ll take away one of those payments, and give you an extra, slightly smaller rock, FREE!” Just because it’s “marked down” doesn’t mean it’s low to begin with.
Ever notice that the payments are always “easy?” How do they know that?
Ever notice that excercise equipment, it always works in “just a few short weeks?” Short? Since when does the length of weeks change?
(Okay, those last two were just grammar nitpicks, but it annoys me when I see it on TV.)
“And just for calling now, we’ll throw in some easy to use, portable pocket gravel…that’s right!..your very own convenient gravel but only if you call right now!”
I always think of Opus, the esteemed penguin, who was mesmerized into buying salad shooters, etc. Where’s a bubble-butted, herring-swilling, infomerical-addicted penguin when we need him, hmmmmm?
Veb