This morning when I was brushing my teeth I left the water faucet on. I looked down into the sink with all that water just going down the drain. Suddenly I remembered that commercial where a goldfish is in the little fish bowl and the water level is slowly getting lower and lower. The poor fish is going to die because some person is just too lazy to turn off the faucet while she's brushing her teeth! So I turned the faucet off because I figured I was just wasting water...either that or because I wanted to save the goldfish!
I guess my thought processes are a result of having just finished a book by Dean Koontz (can we say weird!) called "Night Chills". It hits on an interesting subject; behavior modification and subliminal suggestion. I guess the basic idea is that advertisers (or whoever) can reach our innermost selves, our subconscious mind, and in some way influence or control us. Like when you go to the movies and at the beginning of the previews you get this "Hungry?" question flashing across the screen. That probably gets you thinking about it, yeah...maybe I am a little hungry. Then they show all that buttery popcorn, pouring out like some weird colored snow, along with all those Junior Mints and those Good and Plenty Licorice candies. Then you start thinking, well if I'm going to eat all that, I know I"ll need something to drink too. Before that thought is complete, what do they show but a very large, ice cold Coca Cola with the water droplets running down the outside of the cup. You're hooked.
Remember the rumour going around that our poor innocent youth were being influenced in a very terrible way by playing their records? Apparently if you played it backwards (how could you play a record backwards on a record player??) it would say something like "Satan is Lord" and would make you a Satan worshiper. I think it was called back masking, or something like that. (I can't remember what my point was for bringing that up).
When my children were little, probably about 6 and 8 I wanted to make sure they knew that just because they saw something on the t.v. didn't mean it was real. I explained how they could make just about anything look real, and make-believe on the t.v. is just not the same thing as real-real life. I must have said something that stuck with my daughter that day. Because a few days later she and I was sitting on the couch watching something on t.v. A commercial came on, the one where the pretty girl shakes back her long blond hair and puts her hands on her hips saying, "Never let them see you sweat!" My daughter looked up at me with her big hazel eyes and said, "That's not true, mom!"
Who says kids never listen!
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