Aunty Christ surprisingly finds that ad executives may be less than completely honest

I know what this is, but I don’t like it. This is some advertising executive’s version of when I was 16 years old, hanging out in my basement with my friends, and my dad would come downstairs and tell that joke about the pirate’s zipper, and instead of glowering at him and directing him not to embarrass me in front of my friends, please, I would say, “Ha ha ha, that’s super funny, Dad.” And then, as if it had only just then occurred to me, “Hey, can I borrow the car tonight? We’re thinking of catching a show in Chicago.”

Untruth #1:

Americans are always finding ways to be more responsible.

Untruth #2:

People are smart.

First of all, let me apologize. These commercials have been on the air forever, and it’s only now that I’m getting around to making fun of them. But honestly? There are so many things to make fun of. Who has the time?

I’m going to say that if there is one belief that all the people of the world are united in, no matter what country they live in, what religion they subscribe to, their basic philosophy, class, gender, educational background, race, political leanings, fashion sense, age, taste in music, marital status, or general mien, the one thing that everyone can agree upon is that people are not smart. And Americans are provably not always finding ways to be more responsible. I mean, I’m only one person—I know!—but I spent my day:

Sitting on the couch.
Eating.
Looking at things on the internet.
Worrying about stuff.
Yelling at the thug dogs, who bark at everything.
Worrying about some other stuff.
Eating again.
Kind of watching TV while looking at things on the internet.

I can’t even remember the last time I, personally, found way(s) to be more responsible. I guess it might have been that time I realized that watching TV while looking at things on the internet and turning on all the water taps in the house is maybe a little much. But I, of course, am not “Americans.” Perhaps Americans as a whole have been a little more responsible than Aunty? Perhaps we can think of a few examples?

Um, no. I think we can say for a fact that Americans are always finding ways to be more vindictive. Americans are always finding ways to cut corners. Americans are always finding ways to justify their stupidity. Americans are always finding ways to celebrate their stupidity. And people—whoever they are—are generally not smart.

Frankly, I might buy a car from the company that told me that.

“Hey, American. Guess what? We’ve done some research, and we find that generally, people are pretty worthless. A person may be smart. A person may be resourceful. But people? Forget about it. Anyway, we’ve made these cars, and we plan on selling them. If you want one, stop by and ask us about them. If not, that’s all right too.”

I think I’d buy that car. I’d think about it, anyway.

On a completely different issue: Everyone in the world reads boing boing and thus already knows this, but they recently posted this horrifying video of a lady removing a botfly larva from her scalp, which, man! That totally takes me back. When I was living in Remote Mountain Village, I house sat for a lady who owned four small dogs and two cats for what seems like several hundred weeks but was probably, like, 10 days or so. During that time, I noticed a boil on the neck of one of the wiener dogs. When it started to bleed and ooze pus, I took the dog to the vet, who extracted—that’s right—a botfly, about the size of a quarter. Which was the second-most-disgusting thing I remember about that week.

A few days later, planes flew into two towers in the World Trade Center, and they collapsed, and everything changed, but we weren’t sure how yet.

The next day, to get ourselves away from CNN, my friend and I hiked to a meadow outside of town, and sat under the aspen, in silence, broken now and then by the fighter jets flying out of Colorado Springs. And as we talked about what had happened and what would happen next, we came to the conclusion that the only rational reaction the U.S.could have was to systematically cut financial ties to the Middle East by decreasing its dependence on oil.

And then we realized who was in charge of crafting the U.S. reaction. And man. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As much as I want to be able to just drop the whole Bush anger thing, on the eighth anniversary of that day I remembered that sinking feeling and felt I needed to honor it.

And say to DiTech and BMW: You say smart? You say resourceful? You don’t fool me. I remember George W. Bush.

Truth #1:

Botflies are repulsive.