Dean Minnich: Here’s why I’m driven to escape TV hucksters | COMMENTARY
Why are people going bonkers? It’s because so many hucksters are yelling at us, stoking our emotions, making us think we’re late for something even if we had our car keys taken from us years ago.
You can sit in front of the TV for half an hour and still not know if we’re getting rain soon, but you will have all you need to know about five companies that will come in and cover up your old bathroom in one day.
I can’t get in to see a doctor in the ER in one day. But I can get a new shower enclosure and take the rest of my life to pay for it, which is the huckster definition of affordable payments.
If you need a lawyer, you can find a bunch of them on TV. Nice ones, nasty ones, lawyers who look and sound like they will be needing a lawyer sooner rather than later. And you know: If you have a phone …
Another reason we’re angry at everything and everyone is the people lining up on TV to tell us we smell bad. I have a wife for that. I don’t need some strange woman in her underwear leaning out of a 55-inch HD TV into my den to tell me in confidence that she uses this deodorant one can apply “anywhere.”
I see things that make me wonder why anyone would worry about their kids learning too much too fast from a library book. Forget the M-rated movies. Just expose their tender little minds to dinnertime ads and they’ll learn things.
A reporter shows briefly to announce that the Orioles have made a roster move, back with details after this …
He’s lying. I watch car ads for six minutes, three different dealers, and when they’re finished barking that I should get down there NOW because these deals will go away forever, the sports guy is back and says, “News from the Orioles, when we return.”
I yell at the TV: “You just said … ” but I’m cut off by another home improvement developer that appears to be one of the companies ripping up somebody’s bathroom and replacing a backyard pool and installing a new roof, all in one day. And at payments anyone can afford, if they just keep paying for as long as it takes.
It makes me want to jump in my car and roar off to the horizon, ignoring speed limits because there are no other cars on the road, no stop signs, no traffic lights, nothing to slow you down but a shortcut on the left that will take your $80,000 ride over rocks, crossing streams and racing trains to the crossings.
And you wonder why people drive like idiots, weaving from lane to lane and gunning on green lights on Route 140 or 97? Why aliens land daily on I-795 and the Beltway and seem bent on destruction or abduction?
They’re folks just like you and me who make the mistake of tuning in to the news for sports and weather.
The real burnouts among us also overdose on political news and advertising.
Never did catch the news about the Oriole roster move. The mute button is next to delete.
Dean Minnich writes from Westminster.