A Funny Thing-- or two --About Advertising

Will product marketing ever exhaust the supply of inventive strategies for selling stuff? The possibilities are apparently limitless, often questionable, and sometimes immodestly distasteful.

A dishwashing detergent is advertised as having aromatherapy ingredients. One can supposedly be mentally calmed, emotionally fortified, and spiritually renewed while scrubbing last night's lasagna pan.

Well, I'm sorry, I don't want my aromatherapy while I am washing dishes, mopping floors, or doing any other menial household task. I want it after a sea salt massage at a luxurious spa , when I am swathed in a warm Irish cream taffy body wrap, and drinking a frothy papaya smoothie with a little paper umbrella in it. Some things just combine better than others. I also don't want acupuncture while sewing, or reflexology while I vacuum.

Other product ads defy common sense. An over the counter medication says it "stops pain from hurting". If you have pain and it stops hurting ... is it still pain? I could understand if they claimed the product STOPPED pain, because the definition of pain is something that hurts, isn't it? Once it has been stopped from hurting, it is no longer pain.

Can one stop rain from raining? No, because rain is not rain, if it isn't coming down. It's a cloud. Does anyone look out the window and say, "Hey it's raining, but it's not coming down, because it's still a cloud?" I never do.

Can you stop sunshine from beaming? If you hold a large object up in front of it, it is no longer sunshine. It is a shadow. Can you stop frost from chilling? Itches from irritating? Some things are defined by their effect, just as pain is described by "hurt".

If pain COULD be stopped from hurting, we might all have lots of pain at this very moment, but not know it. If we take a fall and someone rushes up and asks if we are in pain, how can we be sure? If the pain is not hurting, could we actually be in a lot of pain and not know it ? Thinking about this is making my head hurt. But is that a pain just because it hurts? Or can you have hurting without actual pain? I guess if I keep asking you all of these confusing questions I could be considered a pain. But would I really hurt?

Certain other products really test the limits of good taste. They are not necessarily food products, either. Perhaps this seems prudish, but I am somewhat offended by the shampoos which cause exaggerated and passionate emotional reactions in women washing their hair. It makes you wonder how these women react when they meet with a really intense, arousing experience. These kinds of uninhibited and overdrawn responses attributed to the use of shampoo should be reserved for personal private moments of genuine rhapsodical ecstasy, such as when one is secretly consuming chocolate raspberry truffles.

A great deal of time and incredible creativity has been wasted by the fertile minds who come up with things like aromatheraputic detergent and euphorical shampoo. Just think if these inventive brains could be applied to something really important like curing deadly diseases, securing world peace, or designing anti-gravity underwear. Wouldn't the world be a better place?