Ads Infinitum

I remember the good old days when I used to fret about unloading the mailbox at the bottom of my driveway and sorting through the five thousand ads in shiny colored newspapers and manilla folders filled with requests for my money.

I would slice open an envelope and discover I won a trip to Barbados.  All I would have to do was order a commemorative-plate-of-the-month celebrating the characters from Gilligan’s Island or some other television show for $24.99 a month for the next decade.  Or, If I ordered right away I could save two dollars on an eight ounce jar of wrinkle remover.  I considered it, but I would need more like eight gallons to do the trick.   My local barber once asked what kind of haircut I wanted.  I pointed to a photo above his station which showed a Kookie Burns head of hair, thick, shiny and lustrous.  “I want that!” I told Lennie.  Lennie counted the follicles left on my scalp and told me that such a success was beyond his pay grade.  I think Lennie turned me in to some hirsute manufacturers who kept sending me solutions for baldness.  Most of them seemed to recommend hair transplants as if my scalp was some sort of garden that just needed some grass plugs and fertilizer.

I admit I don’t read most of the ads stuffed in my mailbox, but I am a child of the fifties, and that culture was noted for its growth in successful advertising.  In elementary school I memorized the capitals of all forty-eight states, but the city I most wanted to visit was not a capital at all—-Battle Creek, Michigan.  I grew up subjected to assaults from ads printed on cereal boxes and comic books, and all the products of those ads came from that wondrous city.  It is from Battle Creek I purchased my Navy Frogman a two-inch gray plastic person with goggles.  Put a little baking soda in the cap in his left foot and Navy Frogman would go up and down in my bathtub.

I graduated to Navy Submarine, a four-inch gray plastic vessel with periscope, putting some baking soda in the round cap at the bottom of the vessel and watching it go up and down in my bathtub.  I often had both Navy Frogman and Navy Submarine going at the same time.  Hours of fun.

I thought that when Polley became the censor of our mailbox ads I would be spared attempts to convince me to spend my money on things I do not need.  That was before email.  Last year before the holidays, I was surfing the internet looking for a new pocketbook for my wife.  That was a mistake.  A year later I am still receiving emails trying to convince me to purchase a leather handbag or a calfskin handbag or a nutria handbag.  I am still struggling to differentiate among handbags, pocketbooks, purses, totes, shoulder bags and coach pocketbooks.

Once you buy something from a website, it is all over.  You will never ever stop receiving emails advertising its wares.  And now, even if you mention an item within hearing shot of your voice assistant, you are likely to increase your email ads exponentially.

A couple of weeks ago I asked Polley if she had some salve that I could rub on my lower back which I had sprained.  Within a day my virtual mailbox was stuffed with ads for all kinds of creams and salves promising to alleviate my pain, including a balm sworn to be effective by a shaman in the Bolivian rain forest.

For some of these ads, if you scroll down to the bottom of your screen, hold up a magnifier to the hundredth power so you can read the small print, you can unsubscribe to the seller.  That does not always work.  And many websites do not offer that option.

The worst offenders of not honoring your request to unsubscribe are the political ads.  I was traveling in a far western state when I met a local candidate who convinced me to part with five dollars to support his campaign for a local office.  That was six years ago, and I still receive requests to support his political career.

Firmly believing in my responsibility to support candidates who I believe best represent my ideals and interests, I have donated online.  Once. For me, a retired teacher, a substantial sum.  I also requested that, since this one donation more or less emptied my coffers which were designated to political contributions, that I receive no more emails.  You know how that went.

I get more emails every day from candidates from all states for all positions.  And the subject lines are always so lame.

“We’re almost there!!” (I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!)

“Disaster in Kalamazoo!  Unless you chip in today!!” (it is my responsibility to save the world)

“We’re screaming for your help!” (how can I ignore Tiny Tim?)

“We were wrong….we thought we could count on you!” (how did they know I suffer from Catholic guilt?)

“Margaret ___ is stunned!”  (Margaret should see my bank account)

“We are so close to winning!” (more guilt)

“Before you delete…”  (like shooting a horse which broke its leg)

“Don’t delete.”  (warning or begging?)

“If you don’t read any other email read this.” (I am not like the other five thousand emails you receive every day)

The last three I delete first.

The ones I really abhor are the ones that pretend to ask for your input.

“We chose you for our survey [as well as the other sixty million people on our recruiting list] because we need your input.”

“What should the party’s major agenda for the coming years?  Please take our survey.”

And, of course, at the end of the survey comes the request to chip in 5, 10, or 25 dollars.  I learned to be careful and to check the box signaling this was a one shot contribution and NOT a monthly one.

I know that my answers to the survey eventually ended up in some virtual circular filing cabinet.  I also know that instead of using all those contributions to help someone’s campaign to be elected, those funds would be best served to address some needs that candidates often “speechify” about.  How about taking those millions of dollars spent on campaigns to help people who have lost jobs or use that money to speed along the administration of the Covid vaccinations?

Sorry.  That dollop of idealism just pops up once in a while.

So, where as I used to spend a fair amount of time sorting through the mailbox at the end of my driveway, I now spend a proportionate number of minutes pressing the delete button a couple of hundred times.  I just wish that I could do it while watching my Navy Frogman go up and down.