Not Okay—Needs Overhauling

We’ve all heard the “BOGO” ads—“buy one, get one.” Such a deal!

But what you may or may not realize is that you’re also being subjected to a constant barrage of what I call “NO-NO” advertising. It’s out there all around you. The message is simple—you’re “not okay” as you are and you “need overhauling.”

Strangely enough this revelation struck me one day at a department store. I had gone upstairs to the lingerie department which happened to be situated in a corner. Along one wall of the corner were signs proclaiming that the bras hanging there would make the wearer look bigger and sexier. Along the other wall of the corner were signs proclaiming that those bras would make the wearer look smaller and sexier. The two walls converged. I stepped back and looked at the advertising again and it hit me. Not one person who came in to shop was okay. Every person shopping in there was either too small or too large—and no one looked sexy. Curious, I actually went over to see if there was a collection in that corner for people who were “just right.” Nope. Nada. Didn’t exist.

Apparently we live in an imperfect world. Thank heavens there are people out there who can fix us.

I started looking at other ads in print, on the internet, on television—and the message is all too often the same. We’re lacking, we’re sagging, we’re aging (which, by the way, beats the alternative!). We’re not cool enough, hot enough, thin enough, sexy enough. (Sexy enough seems to be a popular theme for just about anything being sold.) In what has to be one of the more bizarre societal moves, men and women are knowingly injecting a strain of botulism under their skin to paralyze their faces and avoid getting wrinkles. I always grew up thinking that botulism was something to be avoided—and people are paying to have it stuck under the skin on their faces? I’m sorry—somehow that one just really baffles me.

I went to a meeting recently and one of the women sitting at our table confessed that she was still suffering the effects of some “shots” she’d gotten several days earlier. She laughed (or at least attempted to) and made some comment about the price of beauty that we all have to pay. Uh-huh. Her face was frozen in various places, making simple expressions like smiling impossible, and her lips looked like she’d gone a couple of rounds in a prize fight and lost. This is an attractive woman—but at that moment she looked grotesque. And as she sipped water through a straw from the corner of her mouth, I wondered why she would want to go through such an experience. Did she question her own worth to the point where it was all about the outer appearance rather than what’s on the inside? Are we so age-obsessed that we dare not have a line on our faces?

I’ll admit that I’m as vain as the next woman (well, on second thought, maybe not), but I have my pride. Yet somehow it’s never been that important to me to look like I’m still 23 years old. Who do I think I’m fooling? My son is older than that. And frankly, I wouldn’t be 23 again if you paid me. I like who I’ve become over the years, and I like even more that I’m still a work in progress. I don’t want to be the same age forever—how incredibly boring!

So thank you very much, but I think just I'll pass on buying from the "NO-NO" ads.