Caveat Slackjaw

Over the years I’ve spent many hours with late-night television programming for company: as a uni student, pulling all-nighters because I only started my 5,000 word essay the night before it was due; after odd hours at crappy jobs; feeding babies that can’t comprehend an adult brain needs more than two hours’ sleep at a time to function optimally; and now trying to write blog posts during the only time I have to myself.

Anyone who’s ever been in the same boat will not be surprised at the paltry fare on offer. I stare incredulously at the current infomercial playing at broken-record frequency on the television. This one is for the latest (and, so I am assured, the greatest) tooth-whitening system, comprising plastic mouthguard, complimentary-aeroplane-toothpaste-sized tube of gel (ingredients unknown), and a weak blue torch.

Obviously all the media-whore starlets and has-been ‘celebrities’ who were D-grade even in their heyday spurned this spruiking job in favour of endorsing a product more compatible with the pretence their teeth weren’t bought from Beverly Hills just like their boobs and curiously wrinkle-free faces. From the look of the average Joes the home shopping company has cast in their stead, one might be forgiven for thinking they are in fact advertising a cure for buggy-eyes, nancy boy haircuts or those with a pathological urge to grin like demented flight attendants.

I squint uncertainly at the before and after pictures, wondering if my eyes have gone rheumy with premature aging, because most of the ‘before’ photos look perfectly normal and natural, whereas the ‘after’ shots seem to show the effects of swallowing a fluorescent tube.

Pah! I dismiss the advertisement. You don’t impress me with your ‘before’ dramatisations of ridiculously yellowed teeth resembling something straight out of a primary school pantomime. I laugh at your exaggerated and badly-acted portrayals of the myriad inconveniences to be expected when using a rival product. I snort with derision at that universal disclaimer, “individual results may vary”, which conveniently abrogates any responsibility on the part of Dodgy Brothers Home Shopping for teeth which (quelle surprise) experience no such miraculous blanching. Your pseudo-scientific jargon and animated exposition are to me as the waffling of a drunken idiot.

And yet, as the midnight oil burns rapidly away and my judgement and sense turn in for a few hours’ sleep, the repetitive harangue, scripted testimonials and subliminal messages begin to seem reasonable and trustworthy.

I can trial the amazing Nuclear-blast intensity whitening system for only $99.95? Hmm.

Can I finish this post later? I need to make a phone call…