More Bad Commercials

The Ped Egg... How could I have forgotten the Ped Egg? We were talking about bad commercials last night at youth group and the Ped Egg comes up as universally hated. Why? Because feet are disgusting. All feet. I don't care if you think you have cute feet. You do not. Nobody does. Feet are gross.

Even in the most exquisite homes, should you pry off the molding from around the ceiling, you will find and unfinished edge that looks dry and cracked and disused from being out of sight and hard to reach. You may even find a gaping unfinished gap where the drywall of the two were to meet but didn't. Besides, put the trim back on and no one is the wiser. The trim is shoes, the rough, unfinished corners are feet.

There is not a great amount of fine design that went into making feet look pretty. They are far away from the eyes and should always be that way. Feet are not to be regarded so much as they are to be cared for. Minimally.

I know I am going to die from slipping in the shower with one foot in my hand and the rest of me balanced precariously on the other. This is why as soon as I get done washing my feet, I know at least I will live another month before I have to do that again!

What, you wash your feet every day? Listen, I don't have that kind of faith. Cheating death can only lead to death. Besides, all the soap and water rush down there anyway! Your feet are the cleanest part of you after you shower. Until the second you step out...

You know that bathmat? Riddled with germs and fecal coliforms; to say nothing of the bathroom floor. As soon as you put your feet down, the jig is up. Feet are gross. They cannot be made ungross by polish and pedis or any other matter of dressing them up; except to cover them completely. For those of you fetishists out there, I think you are sick. You have a sickness. Feet are gross.

And the commercial for the Ped Egg, you know the one made famous by the shot of the clear plastic collector filled with what is ostensibly "foot shavins'" but looks for all the world like grated Parmesan cheese? Never should have been allowed to happen.

Which brings me to the next series of commercials that ought to be outlawed now and forever more; hair removal.

If something is called the "personal groomer", why do you compel me to watch you use it? I don't need to see some lady of a certain age hacking back her 'stache, (which by the way so thick I have second-thoughts about shaving mine off because it is comparatively wimpy), or god forbid demonstrating the use of the product in the "gentle areas" which this thing is really designed for. I just hope she cleaned the thing before she went from her "gentle areas" to her mustache.

And do these people know that gentle and genital sound a lot alike? What happened to the old days when the commercials referred to this region as the "bikini line"? I can live with that, because as much as I don't want to hear about bikini line maintenance, at least I can think about bikinis while the announcer is talking. And that's not half bad.

But what of feminine hygiene commercials? Never bothered me. They don't show the use of their product. And for good reason! They just allude to it. The target market gets the message and the rest of us are able to go about our lives living in blissful ignorance, just as it was before the commercial. That's good advertising!

I was regaling the youth about another hair removal product whose advertising we could not escape, NADS - the Australian hair removal system. Sadly named, NADS was like a do-it-yourself (with the help of a friend) at home waxing kit. I don't know if NADS means colloquially the same thing in Australia as it means here in the states, but if there is one place you would not want to use NADS was on the nads (they're testicles, Mom). That can only lead to bad things.

The worst part was the actors who were trying their level best not to look like they were in excruciating pain for having used the product. And then the really worst part was when they proudly showed the hair that had been removed on the patented removal pad, which was now mixed in with the sort of amber-greenish tinged NADS product itself. It made a terrible emetic melange. And if you were unemployed or worked third shift, you were exposed to this commercial more times than I believe could possibly be healthy.

You may notice I did not take the time to link any of these commercials to the blentry, because like horror movies or porn they should be viewed only by adults at their own risk with full knowledge aforethought of what you may see. After all, like the popular phrase goes; "You've seen it, you can't unsee it". I will not be party to spreading the message of these purveyors of personal hygiene. After all, the first word of personal hygiene is 'personal'. I for one think we should keep it that way.