Friday, June 4, 2010

Fatmobile

The most irritating commercials on TV are for the Scooter Store. They aren’t irritating in the manner of a “clapper” ad, or the really graphic anti-diarrhea spots. These are irritating because they encourage people on the periphery of need to use Medicare funds for these dubious devices.

The people in the ads are always really cute granny types who obviously need help getting to church or out to help at the Girl Scout bake sale. But who actually uses these machines? You urbanites may not see many of them, but I’ve spent the last few months visiting my local Wal-Mart on at least a weekly basis. Here is the “truth-in-advertising” version* of the testimonials that promote the Scooter Store:

“Hi! How do you like my new scooter from the Scooter Store? It didn’t cost me a nickel. The friendly people at the Scooter Store showed me how to scam Medicare (and you – the taxpayer) and my insurance company (and you – the premium payer) into paying for the whole thing!

After spending a lifetime eating whatever I wanted, never exercising, and watching my weight sore to 400 lbs, I found walking to the fridge a real chore. The folks at the Scooter Store felt my pain and assured me that never walking anywhere was my right as an American! So call today and let the knowledgeable, friendly staff at the Scooter Store show you how to get your friends and neighbors to pay for a new scooter so your fat ass will never have to walk anywhere again. Don’t delay. Call today.”

* My apologies in advance to anyone who actually needs one of these rolling fat-boy carts.

Topic #2: I always take my ear buds to the gym to plug into the sound system while I’m on the elliptical. One bud is marked with an L (left) and the other with an R (right). Yesterday, for at least the twentieth straight time, when I looked down I found that I had R in my left hand and L in my right. I say “at least” because it had probably happened another 10-20 times before I started counting. This seems like a near mathematical impossibility to me. One of you must have the math skills to calculate the odds. I am perplexed.

So I guess you can tell I’m reaching for topics. Forgive me but I am hugely distracted as we are in the process of sorting through 30 years of life’s accumulations, and packing them up in preparation of moving out of our house at the end of the month – our fourth major move in 3-1/2 years. This is leaving me little time for the deep thought and rigorous research that normally goes into these posts.

9 comments:

Birdman said...

And you're in NY. You can't imagine what the scene is at the local "super" Walmart in Spartanburg, SC. The automatic doors don't even work unless you weigh at least 270 lbs. In order to accomodate the number of fatboy scooters, the aisles need to be as wide as the roads in downtown Salt Lake where they were designed to allow a 6-ox team to turn around.

I agree that the scooter ads look and sound like a complete scam. Some people do needs these devices (just go to my 93 year-old father's graduated living complex.) But the "nod nod, wink wink - you won't have to pay a dime" nature of the ads leads you to beleive that somebody's going to get screwed at the end of the transaction. Probably everybody but the scooter company.

Good luck on your move. I don't envy you.

Unknown said...

Tipping the scales at 140+/- lbs precludes me from weighing in on this problem directly.

Taken in a greater context, this issue is representative of the larger problem of the "gotcha" mentality facing our society. We pride ourselves as being governed by laws, not men. Thus, the loophole. [Being a direct descendent of he who would murder his son for a voice, which no one else heard, my people invented it.]

Playing by the rules of he game is a door which swings both ways. The good soldier loses his perfect game on the 3rd out of the 9th by a bad call and takes it on the chin in the name of sportsmanship. But selling bad financial products and getting away with it because it is legal does not help our collective unconscious. Nor does a Presidential election decided by the AT of a state where one of the candidate's brother is Governor.

Getting back to topic. Do you think special interest lobbying has anything to do with this reimbursement arrangement?

Gaga said...

Where did you get the pic of my X?

The L & R bud thing must have something to do with one CD weighing more than the other.

On another topic, I havnt heard anyone chanting "drill baby drill" in awhile.

Who stole my walker?

rsb said...

DB, if you are looking for topics, how about writing about Jim Joyce’s incorrect call against Armando Galarraga.

Five years from now if Galarraga had gotten the “perfect game” who would remember? But because of the way that both men handled the situation, I think it is a memory that will last a life time for me. That was TRUE sportsmanship.

That game was Pitch Perfect!

Perhaps DB, you could embellish the topic should you chose to.

jreebel said...

And how about the explosion of handicapped parking permits? I can't believe the number of them that I see, and how often people get out and walk into the store just as briskly as I do. I agree about the scooters. I would guestimate that 3 out of every 4 I see are massively obese rather than elderly and/or infirm. Walking around the store would help these people. But it's so easy to be a "victim."

kgwhit said...

And while we are at it, let's ban golf carts. If you are too old fat and lazy to walk a golf course, take up shuffleboard.

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