Yes, kids, it is December already. I've seen the Christmas commercials to prove it. (I know, Christmas ads begin running just after Easter. Humor me, I needed a segue.)
Now we know it's an unusual year and retailers need to be increasingly creative with their pitch to the consumer. ("You won't get trampled to death here!" just didn't test that well with focus groups apparently).
So the first commercial I noticed was for Kay jewelers. An attractive couple sits in front of both their Christmas tree and a fireplace. The woman is deaf and the man is struggling to communicate through sign language. My immediate thought was "If he can't sign that well, they obviously haven't been together very long or he is one dumb ass." Then I decided she was just a deaf trolip about to voraciously consume him on the living room carpet of some hard-working woman who, besides having all of her auditary faculties, was hard at work in some office tower to make sure her husband would get his Lexus this Christmas. That's just more fun.
(By the way, doesn't deaf trolip sound like a Christmas cookie -- "Come here kids, Mommy made a plate of deaf trolips to leave out for Santa to eat. Want a taste? Yummy!")
Then my mind wandered. I tried to think of the advantages of dating a deaf woman. If a deaf woman nags a man with sign language and he's not there to read it, is it still really nagging? You
could listen to old Stones CDs as loud as you wanted. Marlee Matlin is pretty hot. And then there is silent farting, if you can master the Silent But Deadly variety, or blunt her olfactory senses too.And I wonder why it's tough to pay the rent, me thinking about farting around deaf mutes, I mean mates. Deaf mates.
About 20 minutes later (when my deaf advantage list had reached "She won't hear strange sounds in the middle of the night and wake me up for nothing..."), Best Buy's Geek Squad joined the Very Special Christmas parade. The commercial is a Geek Squad employee talking about an installation of a big screen television he recently completed for a man who is legally blind.
The man had memorized the room and "felt" a perfect spot for the TV. They set up the TV and taught the man how to operate four different remotes by feel, counting the buttons that control the TV and (I assume) a stereo system which he could enjoy (but not his deaf daughter who was out boning some peace-loving philanderer).
And suddenly I think: a TV for a blind guy? If he can't see the remote in his hand, how will he possibly enjoy the $2,000 flat screen. I hope they didn't con him into buying the HD package. How does this make any sense? For $2,000 he can have a neighbor come over every day and do the hand-puppet thing against the wall. ("Is it me or are there more and more black actresses these days?")
I was waiting for the Geek Squad guy to tell me he had lots of iPods for deaf trollips, scratch and sniff stickers for noseless children, and powerful microwaves for those without taste buds.
I understand retailers wanting to appeal to our softer side by demonstrating that Christmas can be special for all of us. I think it's a little bit of a cheap trick, like bringing your girlfriend's mom flowers they day you meet her. Or servicemen wearing their uniforms in bars, eliminating any hook up chance for mere civilians. We would all do it, but it's still a little bit cheap.
Frankly I would prefer the ads to be a bit edgier, saying things like:
* "Bose sound systems are so kick ass that Blair's cousin Geri from The Facts of Life rocks out too!"
* "Make it a very special Christmas, if you know what we mean..."
* "If your kid likes rocks, wrap up some gravel for the little bugger and spend more money on that sparkling diamond ring at Kay!"
But alas, I write only this blog, not touching Christmas advertisements for leading retail companies. So we will be subject to the heart-warming portrayals of capable Christmas.
Hmm, I wonder if Marlee Matlin likes bloggers....
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