"Someday soon I'll make you mine, then I'll have candy all the time..."
I like to believe that I, as a reasoned, mature individual, am immune to advertising. I like to think that there is a plexiglass shell encasing my body which TV commercials can’t penetrate. My protective little bubble deflects banal and inane marketing ploys like a dodge ball bouncing off a nerd. Hell, I don’t even see much advertising these days, thanks to that little electronic lover known as the DVR.
So I’m feeling a little duped right now. Well, maybe “dupe” isn’t quite the right word. How about deceived? Tricked? Hoodwinked? Ah now, hoodwink is a great word, but not exactly befitting my circumstances.
You know the old saying, “A sucker is born every minute”? Well today must be my birthday, because I got suckered into buying something I didn’t need, thanks to seductive advertising.
Now I know what you are thinking and no, I didn’t race out and buy a can of Pedigree dog food, although David Duchovny’s disembodied voice hinted that it was a good idea, and Justin Long hasn’t convinced me to buy a Mac (yet), even though he is hella sexier than poor, stodgy PC touting John Hodgman.
No, I got suckered into - of all things - a candy bar. Let me rephrase that: I got suckered into the IDEA of a candy bar. Specifically the new 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate. Oh yes. I happened to be surfing away in the lounge while keeping one eye on Mmm Mmm Good Joel McHale on The Soup, when
cockneyrebel decided to wander into the kitchen, leaving the remote out of my reach. Not that I can figure the damned thing out anyway - especially since he went and got an “All-In-One” remote that stores the functions of five remotes in one handy dandy little package. I was just starting to get the hang of the five remotes that this one replaced; now I’m back to square one, frantically pushing buttons that do everything but the stuff I want it to do, such as pause the picture or lower the sound. I’m pretty sure that I’ve rang the neighbor’s wireless doorbell with it a few times, and rumor has it that the remote is a suspect in an ongoing investigation involving flight interference at the airport.
So if I’d have been able to work the remote, I might have been able to fast forward through the commercial, but I couldn’t, so I didn’t, and by the end of the ad I was already daydreaming about biting into fluffy, minty goodness.
In my mind, the 3 Musketeers Mint bar was going to taste just like the Nestle UK Aero bar, only fluffier. It was going to have the fluffy whipped center of a 3 Musketeer, but the mint-chocolaty goodness of the Aero. I could almost taste it.
And today I finally did.
It ain’t all that. In fact, it tastes suspiciously like a bar-shaped York Peppermint Patty.
Not that that’s bad, mind.