You know you’re on a Foreign Exchange to America When... You Want To Vacuum Pack Your Clothes.

Some adverts make you laugh, some make you aware, some make you cry (anything with puppies and kittens for me!), some make you want to get in your truck and race to the nearest mall and some make you just go ‘Huh??’.

These are a particular breed, clearly made with a budget of around $6 a minimum of 3 years ago but still being shown night after night as you tap your fingers waiting for the next segment of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (another thing guaranteed to get me reaching for the Kleenex). Just as your stealing yourself for Ty revealing a new home for a disabled war widow and her five blind kids, Vince comes on.

For those of you not in the know (or who have a life) Vince is the Shamwow guy. Shamwow is a shammy cloth and Vince wealds it like Indiana Jones with his bull whip. If he wasn’t on TV he could be in a circus sideshow. ‘Roll up! Roll up! See the google-eyed freak and his magic towel! Marvel as it drinks up twenty times its own weight in liquid!’ Vince talks at the speed of a freight train, eyeing you through the screen like a crazy person while running the Shamwow through its paces. He informs us it’s made by Germans, “and you know they always make good stuff”. Yep! He’s actually comparing a fancy dishcloth to a BMW.

The next ad features some guy asking you to send him your scrap gold. Scrap gold? Isn’t that an oxymoron? The advert also features some really sentimental women who have sent in gifts from their ex’s, even their first wedding ring in order to get a check they’ll probably put toward a new face rather than a new man. Now that’s emancipation.

Have you ever been to church and had difficulty hearing the sermon (Isn’t that the whole point?)? Do you annoy your cow of a wife by having the TV too loud? Do you want the birdsong to be even louder? Then you need ‘Listen up’! Yep, you too can look like a complete dork while you hold up the handset in order to better hear the word of God.

But at least you’re not wearing a blanket with sleeves.

It is bad enough that they recommend wearing the ‘Snuggie’ in your own home but camping? If you came across that family your first thought would probably be “cult!” than “ooh, I really need one of those!” And if anyone wore that at Wrigley Field we’d laugh them out of the park (along with all hope of ever winning anything ever). By the way, if the last thing your mom said to you before you left for college was “Don’t forget your Snuggie” you’ve got way more serious issues than passing midterms.

These adverts are all disturbing in their individual ways but there is another kind that really freaks me out, drugs. Every time they go through that long list of side effects such as suicidal tendencies, constipation and anal bleeding, I start to wonder whether you’re better off just sticking with what you have already. In a country where health care is a commodity and one of the presidential candidates describes it as a responsibility rather than a right it obviously requires promotion. Otherwise how else would you know what to tell your doctor to give you?

So as I pull my ‘Snuggie’ further around me, get my ‘Shamwow’ ready to soak up the tears and turn on the ‘Listen Up’ to not miss a single word of Ty and co, I wonder if I’ll ever even get some gold I’ll want to get rid of and get really homesick for the NHS.

Shamwow ad

Snuggie ad

Ding! Ding! Round Two!!

In the red corner the Bulldog of Arizona, John ‘The Maverick’ Mac Mac McCaaaaain! Aaaaaand in the blue corner straight from the hard south-side of Chicago, the Homeboy of Hawaii, Baaarak Obamaaaaaaa!

The ref throws in the elephant in the room. How will these two brave fighters handle THE ECONOMY!

Obama bounds out. He jabs with a biblical response. It’s the final judgement on Bush policies, 700 billion is just first step, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are riding over the horizon, we’re all going to die! Except the execs at AIG who will probably just go back to the spa.

McCain looks tired… but then he always looks tired. He lumbers to his feet and puts in a good middle-class punch. He’s already using the words America and heart in the same sentence and reminding the audience that all the countries who “don’t like us” have all our oil in their ground. How dare they! Guess we’d better find some of our own. Damn.

So how about that bailout, will it work?

Mac is straight in with his super suspender! (In case you haven’t heard due to being sat in a corner, quietly crying as the remainder of your pension slips through your fingers like the sands of time, McCain suspended his campaign a couple of weeks ago for all of about 2 hours in order to save the country from economic meltdown. Good job!) After putting his underpants over his trousers he turns to that old favorite ‘ I complained first!!!’ bringing up his claim of sheer outrage, from 2 years ago, about Freddy and Fanny.

After an explanation of the situation during which there were points where Obama should have used PowerPoint, or at least the flowchart he drew in class this afternoon, he socks McCain with a catty ‘Let’s correct’ section. He too uses the ‘I did it first’ tactic. A letter indeed! Wow, that was productive! How about a meeting next? Then a second warning? You can see why the American public gets a little frustrated with the Senate, like, all the time!

McCain comes back with a hard swing of patriotism but the American worker defense has little power due to it’s associations with the fundamentals slip up. He can’t get away from it by just saying “I meant you!”. It’s missed its mark. He reaches for his lucky charm the elfin like Joe Lieberman, who is dangling from his keyring, hoping to spread some of his magic bipartisan dust over the proceedings.

They’re on to priorities. The Black Knight (but in a good way) uses his lance of common sense and actually puts them in order. Super Mac displays his powers by claiming he can do everything at once, health care reform, the economy, education, victory in Iraq, Afghanistan, heal the world and cure cancer. Why wait? With one stroke of my hand all evil will disappear! (This from a man whose VP candidate accused Obama of playing Jesus).

Health care and foreign policy pass with the usual moves: accusations of liberal votes, responsibility or right, did you vote for this or that?, Obama as foreign darling who wants to bring socialized (read commie) medicine and McCain as defender of the castle, more than willing to go into defend national interests without that pesky UN getting in the way.

The match ends yet again with no knock out, each sides definitive win among their supporters being forced on the public in thousands of living rooms around the country, ‘fair and balanced’ or in countdown form. Meanwhile the fighters return to the trail, preparing for the next round. And as Cindy and Michelle paint there big 3 signs the electorate sits back and wonders if it’s November yet.