March 4, 2002
Factories may be closing by the dozen, lines of scraggly people may be forming by the soup kitchen, demonstrators may be fulminating in the park- but BY GOD America is on the job- we've got thermobaric bombs now! Huzzah! Take that, Afghani caves!
In other news, I saw a commercial today. The scene showed two vampires-- oops, wait-- two WOMEN rather, sitting around a table in a coffee shop. The opening shot is one of the coffee cups and you can't see their faces for the camera is at thorso-level and cuts-off everything above their chins. But one of them is talking... "Oh, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night..." she claims.
"Perhaps you had too much coffee?" I thought. "Or you need a Posturepedic™ mattress? Or maybe you don't get enough rat-poison in your diet?"
"It was soooo incredible..." She continues. Hmm, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that this conversation has nothing to do with insomnia. Why I'd bet she got a good dickering the previous night!
No, it wasn't a commercial about the dangers of drinking caffeine too close to bedtime or selecting a mattress without the proper lumbar support. It turns-out it was a commercial for Trojan™ brand condoms. Immediately, one random line spoken by Graham Chapman in Monty Python's Meaning of Life popped into my head: "Harry, I want you to sell me a con-dom. Furthermore I should like one with French ticklers, for I am a Protestant!"
Anyways, Trojan Man (or his hand, at least) suddenly approaches the pair of them with great fanfare and interjects to drop the product onto the table... With Climax Control™ Lubricant, no less! Ahh, that explains the sleepless night! Trojan Man either has great panache, or extreme presumptuousness. And our hero boasts to us of how his product is the finest in the land, allowing one to "go the distance." (But go where exactly? He never explains... I'd have to assume he means the Yucatan, but I think it's safe to assume this is another double-entendré.)
The other woman quips: "Can you stop-by Randall's place?" Of course, Trojan Man replies that yes, indeed he has stopped-by Randall's place already. Trojan Man also possesses the power of omniscient foresight, obviously.
OHO! She slings her bag over her shoulder and hurriedly speeds-off like the Road Runner. (I mean, she's out the door like a gunshot! She doesn't wait an eye-blink before buzzing-away!) Goodness, she's eager... presumably to "go the distance" with this "Randall" fellow. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if she's planning to pay for her coffee before leaving? In her wild-eyed, lustful scramble to jump Randall's bones, the other woman is left picking-up the tab? That doesn't seem very fair.
But anyways, the slogan at the bottom of the Greek-warrior logo was "Reduce the Risk." This left an issue uncomfortably open in my mind...
Hmm, reduce the risk of what exactly? They're quite vague on what risk they're referring to. Burglary? Bus accidents? The Congo plunging into civil war again? Well, I reasoned, it must be only logical that it's some kind of sexual risk, since they're advertising a prophylactic. So... Pregnancy? Aborting unwanted foetuses? HIV? Crabs? Gonorrhea? Chlamydia? Herpes? Syphillis? Or perhaps they mean all those things and more? They just aren't clear on the matter. But they'll never outwardly say 'reduce the risk of unplanned children, genital warts, the clap and other things that can fuck-up your well-being' because they obviously don't want you to mentally-associate their product with those nasty things... No, yet better to leave it all a glossed-over euphemism. Personally, one can get baffled by all this beating-around the bush.
Risk. Risk. Risk. Bah. What bloody risk do I have? Sex- what's that? I have a greater risk of getting hit by a Goodyear blimp! There's no risk of anything because freaking abstinence is my insurance policy! I don't even have the opportunity to take a risk. I have no need for condoms nowadays. They are as about as useful to me as a pair of earmuffs would be to a damn barracuda!
Why in heck will my V-chip block 'objectionable' content like floppy breasts, but not the Trojan commercials- or any other commercials for that matter? Answer me that one!