Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
— Stephen Leacock
Recently my family acquired Malibu Pilates. And, no, this is not a chic yoga place in downtown Portland. Nor is it the new style for a Barbie line coming out.
It’s a seat with a footrest and a spring. And apparently it’s supposed to make your abs look better than Taylor Lautner in his shirtless scene in Twilight: New Moon (analogy courtesy of Rhonda Teeny).
However, this Malibu Pilates, as you can see in the picture, is little more than a glorified stepping stool. And yet, here it is, in our living room, taking up space, and taunting me with what my abs could potentially look like if I used it regularly (Rhonda showed me a picture of this Taylor fellow and I will be taking a quick break from this blog to bust out some reps).
How did we acquire such a contraption? Well, I will leave my mom unnamed to protect her identity. However, it should be noted that the Malibu Pilates is just one of the many odd purchases that this household has made.
You see, we suffer from oniinfomurcialmania, or in laymen terms, or in actual word terms, or as we like to call it around the house: my parents are addicted to infomercials.
We have everything from scissors that can cut through pennies, putty that can hold up two ton weights, tomato plants that grow upside down, towels that absorb way more than your average towel, and a revolutionary lounging article called the Snuggie!
Of course when you break it down, that means we have a pair of packaging scissors, some silly putty mixed with Elmer’s glue, a pot with a lid—turned upside down—, a dry towel, and a airplane-felt robe you’re instructed to wear backwards.
And yet still, the cardboard boxes piling up in our junk room could function as a secondhand As Seen On TV store.
I guess it just goes to show you the power of advertisement.
Or the burning need my family had for a Foodsaver Food Vacuum Packaging Machine… Actually, that one’s kind of useful.
Productively,
jdt