S & M Files, Part XI

Distribution Permission

This version of S & M Files is freely distributable provided that the copyright notice remains intact. All material in the Annals, unless otherwise stipulated, is copyrighted (1999-2006) to Michelle A. Hoyle & Stephen B. Dodd.

Distribution Permission

This version of S & M Files is freely distributable provided that the copyright notice remains intact. All material in the Annals, unless otherwise stipulated, is copyrighted (1999-2004) to Michelle A. Hoyle & Stephen B. Dodd.

Introduction

In which, advertising provides proof that life is strange...

UK ADVERTISING TENDS TO BE MORE EXPLICIT:

A bus featuring "Chicken Run" was branded in large letters, "Pecker Bus"

A cheap flights poster exclaimed, "Surprise the Woman of Your Life, Take Her Sister to France."

Stuck with a store full of those boring white, round turnips? Cover them in checkered packaging. Instant soccer balls!

PRINT ADVERTISING

There must be a different standard of quality for advertising:

Boots Opticians:

Does the copy offer any clue that this is a joke? Nope. Dead serious. It does helpfully point out that both spectacles must be for the same person which could by why the two people featured have painted spectacles instead of real ones.

MOVIE ADVERTISING

From the time the lights go down to the opening credits, there is a restful pause of about 25 minutes of advertising and other previews. Most of this advertising is painfully low quality with fuzzy pictures and muffled sound as if designed for a 25 cent peep show and only incidentally put on a THX screen. But, hey! What do they care? We're not going anywhere!

Most ads have no actual relation to the product they sell. It's simply 60 seconds of something bizarre followed by a logo and tag line. For example, one commercial features an obviously inebriated student watching a slow motion car chase on the pub counter. The car's swerve around beer glasses and eventually crash and smash across the smooth wood grain surface. Drunk driving commercial you ask? No, it's a new advertisement for mobile phone entertainment services.

My theory is the advertisements are all interchangeable student work. The agencies have the summer students crank these out and then randomly slice onto the end shoes, cars, soft drinks, condoms and other products direly in need of marketing.

YOU ASKED FOR IT, YOU NIT PICKERS

Many observant readers wrote in after <scratch> <scratch> Episode VIII - A Nit Picking Adventure.

You asked for it, by popular demand, a latest in hair raising adventures:

If you remember last the intrepid heroes were desperately seeking help for their little multi-legged passengers. Spurned by indifferent doctors, we wandered the streets with a beautiful glass of little lice covered lovingly by saran wrap. Entering the local pharmacy, we thrust this crystal tower of critters upon the counter. "Help!", we cried. "Help!" <scratch> <scratch>.

"Mmmm-hmm. Yep, those are lice all right," the pharmacist pointed out with unexpected confidence and wisdom. "Used to be we didn't have lice much at all. Nope. Sure didn't. All the school kids were checked regularly and that pretty much stopped the spread. Only now, you know, only now they got a law says you can't touch the kids. Nope, can't touch 'em at all. Not to spank 'em, 'specially not to check them."

Many £'s later we had a big bottle of gloopy goop and a special comb labelled nit-brush which we keep in the bathroom to scare guests. That night we had white gloopy head massages (think liquid paper shampoo...wheeee!) and combed many unhappy micro-pets from our hair.

This was good because lice are surprisingly agile little creatures adept at dodging fingers and tweezers and sneaking back to favorite follicles of lice childhood. Taking one less agile fellow between my fingers, I squeezed as hard as I could. "Ah," it said, "what a refreshing massage," and proceeded to wander down my finger.

Our little friends were only supposed to live an hour off our heads but seemed quite content for a day in their little glass tower until The Great Flood (of Brighton tap water) put a stop to that.

Later, in Canada, I found a page with a picture and description of a louse. I pointed and cried, "Aha! Yes, that's exactly what they look like." The caption underneath amazingly said, "Magnified 100X". Yet there it was, life size. This was the actual size of our best lice. Yes, we grew super lice 100X bigger and better than before. Formerly the size of a period, we were blessed with ant size critters. Super-Lice! Oh boy, oh boy!

Stay tuned adventurous readers. We present you with daring tales in Italian lavatories and the joys of moving.




[Michelle's Mind]

S & M Files
Ep. 1 (I) | Ep. 2 (II) | Ep. 3 (III) | Ep. 4 (IV) | Ep. 5 (V) | Ep. 6 (VI) | Ep. 7 (VII) |
Ep. 8 (VIII) | Ep. 9 (IX) | Ep. 10 (X) | Ep. 11 (XI) | Ep. 12 (XII) | Ep. 13 (XIII) | Ep. 14 (XIV) |
Ep. 15 (XIV) | Ep. 16 (XIV)