“Curls that last all day” said the ad for the hot rollers I just had to purchase. You see, I’ve been longing for curly hair ever since I was old enough to peer into a mirror.
I rushed home from the store, followed the directions and waited the allotted time. And then, as I removed the rollers, I beheld them: springy, lovely curls, just as promised!
Ten minutes later, however, my hair once again was as limp as linguine -- and I had to face the wretched reality: I had been foiled again by the fuzzy fabrications of advertisers.
Really, I should have known better. My earliest experience with deception involved an ad that promised unsuspecting children a cereal would make certain wonderful sounds when they added milk.
How eagerly I poured the flakes into the bowl, splashed in the milk and listened for the cacophony that would surely result.
But all I heard were a few feeble fizzles.
At school the sisters told us about the commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
They said lying was wrong, but all around me it seemed the world was bristling with falsehoods.
When the ice-cream truck swept through our Miami neighborhood, bell ringing, my sister and I sped down the sizzling sidewalk in pursuit of a treat.
As the man rooted around in the freezer, we gazed hungrily at the glitzy photos of gigantic cones drenched in rivers of fudge.
Moments later, we tore the paper off our cones and then stared in disbelief. Because, you see, the chocolate adorning our tiny treats was a mere trickle, a thin ribbon of sweet deceit.
In my teen years, I began exploring the world of figure-slimming fashions. A pudgy girl, I was ecstatic to buy undergarments that advertisers assured me would flatten my tummy.
But after squeezing myself into these instruments of torture, I stood before the mirror and realized the sad truth.
If you compress body fat at point A, it inevitably emerges somewhere else, at point B. And, yes, that’s me in the photo album with a neck that looks unusually large.
False advertising claims now seem more prolific than ever. “Lose 20 pounds by summer,” “Get rid of cellulite forever" and my favorite: “Look 10 years younger in minutes.”
As for me, I would gladly buy a product that said “same as it ever was” instead of the highly suspect “new and improved.” I would welcome beauty products that admitted: “Don’t expect a miracle.”
After all, the commandment about lying isn't meant just for kids. And it would be wonderful if advertisers decided to drop the exaggerations and just tell the truth.
This might mean admitting on the cereal box that the flakes just sit there, refusing to emit any musical sounds at all. I think I could live with that.
Lorraine V. Murray's latest books include a biography of Flannery O'Connor, "The Abbess of Andalusia," and two mysteries featuring Francesca Bibbo and Ignatius the hamster -- "Death in the Choir" and "Death of a Liturgist." Her email is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
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