I’m sure you’ve all seen the ads on various sites - some housewife or college student has discovered a ridiculously easy trick that is bound to piss off your dermatologist or help you lose tons of belly fat or earn you a bazillion dollars from the comfort of your own recliner. Apparently these tricks are secrets that “the man” doesn’t want us to know, or something.
Has anyone ever clicked on one of these ads? I assume they all lead to sales pitches for snake oil or some other shady deal, and “ridiculously easy” is catch phrase of the month.
My own versions, free for the taking:
Ridiculously easy weight loss: Eat less and exercise.
Ridiculously easy wrinkle prevention: Stay out of the sun, wear sunscreen, and moisturize.
Ridiculously easy way to reduce the amount of interest you pay on your mortgage: pay more against the principal every month so you reduce the term of the loan.
Ridiculously easy way to make tons of money: Sell your ridiculously easy ideas to gullible folks on the internet.
I’ve seen the ads for “effective old folk remedies” or whatever for weight loss, wrinkle prevention, acne, white teeth, and the like. I assume acai berries, too.
This reminds me of an advertisement I saw in a teen fashion magazine back in the early 90s. It was for a book of dating advice that you could order through the mail. Among the claims, it said the book would teach you “The seven words guaranteed to make any boy call you!” That was good enough for me, so I sent away for it.
The seven words turned out to be “I’ll be getting my number changed soon.”
What? What??? This is what I spent my allowance on? Obviously if the boy hadn’t already become interested in you, that line wasn’t going to work. It would only make him call faster if he was already thinking of doing so.
The book actually did have some interesting “tricks” in it, but nothing that I had the nerve to try, or that would work for me. There was one suggestion to find out (somehow) the route your crush took to walk home from school. Then you walk the same route, only you make sure to leave first, and that way it doesn’t look like you’re following him. Then you slow down or stop to tie your shoe, and, voila! The two of you are walking side by side. Of course, that wouldn’t work for me because I took the bus and so did most other people at my school. Plus this trick assumed that I’d actually know what to say to the guy once we got near each other.
I’m here at the great Southeastern Ag Expo in resplendent Moultrie, Ga. All kinds of faboo ways to cure ailments, polish your furniture, turn you into a gourmet cook (I guess that’s what those fancy pots and pans will do) and most wondrous of all, tubs of goo in which one can stick ones feet in to cure all kinds of foot ailments. :eek:
I sit amongst a veritable cornucopia of ridiculously easy tricks that accept all major credit cards!
Speaking of foot cures, it wasn’t too long ago that you could buy pads that sucked all the bad juju out of your body thru your feet - I remember seeing the ads on TV. The black residue on the pads was proof of the toxins removed from your system.
I figured they were alcohol pads or something and they just cleaned the scuzz off the soles of the feet, but maybe they were ridiculously easy also!!
Actually I think it was iron or something in the pads, and when your feet sweat at night it would rust the iron and look like it sucked all kinds of bad stuff out of your body.
That is so 20th century! Nowadays you just have to rest your feet on an ancient Himalayan salt rock, then walk away thinner, younger and smarter! Possibly even turn you into a superhero…
