We’re all suckers for something.
Adventure. Chocolate. Shoes. The weekend. Each and every one of us has quirks and kinks unique to us all and they often define who we are.
Logan Sachon has hers, too. Television infomercials.
It seems she just can’t curb the infomercial’s siren song. Time and again, she was compelled to purchase some wonder product that promised to change her life for the better … but ended up doing no such thing.
Aahhhhh … the allure of the infomercial. And let me tell you: the writers here at CliqueClack — with our thousands and thousands of combined hours of television viewing (*cough not-mentioning-any-names cough*) — aren’t impervious to the call of this most seductive form of advertising, either. No sirree, Tim. I mean, a few of us even clack about television commercials here on the site, for Pete’s sake.
Which only goes to show there might be a lesson or two we could glean from Logan’s article. Beside shelling out big bucks for therapy to help her addiction, I mean.
First and foremost, she learned a hard, fast lesson as a high school teen. And that lesson was she survived without the food dehydrator she so coveted. This should have been a huge clue for her what was coming in Life, but as with with the majority of teens (and let’s all admit it, with most of us as well) they feel impervious and immortal in those early years when it comes to Life’s little lessons. Teens have the tendency to ignore them when they’re young, because adults are clueless and stupid. Right?
Then, take her “straight-from-TV purchase as an adult” … the infamous Magic Bullet Blender. It was the start of a downward spiral into her infomercial cipher. The relentless gravitational pull of product that promises to improve you, make you a better person.
One who is happier. Healthier. More vibrant. More likable. Better. Stronger. Faster. Longer lived.
You see, those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Logan Sachon got sucked in and realized, too late, products intended to change her habits and her life … didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
But, if I may be so bold as to surmise this: It wasn’t “buying into the promise of a quick change, and just not buying” that was her downfall, it simply wasn’t buying the right product to begin with in her quest for change.
Say for instance the amazing Shoedini … a product which really can change your life …
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Apr 17, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
My mom bought a Magic Bullet blender and used it almost every day for several years. (It’s great for grinding spices.) I, alas, was the one who finally broke it. She immediately went out and bought another… and a separate one for me so that I don’t ever try to use hers again.
*POST AUTHOR*
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The deal is it gets used, Ruby …
You also have to beware of the cognitive dissonance of others. They get sucked into buying this crap, then they actually brainwash themselves into believing this crap is amazing, because they’re afraid to tell others they made a stupid decision, and tell everyone about. And then they manage to convince you to get one because it’s not just some hack on tv telling you it’s great, it’s someone you trust telling you. Then you buy a Magic Bullet and realize it’s only good for mixing small amounts of not very dense things by burning out the motor the second time you use it.
We’ve never been very tempted by infomercials in our household although we’ve gotten a few items. Remember the “Ding King” from several years ago? It actually does a pretty decent job and I’ve pulled 4 dents out of 3 cars over the years with it, but I bought it because I had an immediate need and the price was low enough that if it was crap I wouldn’t be out enough cash to fret over. It doesn’t do a perfect job, but when you consider the dents were pulled to a point you had to look for them just to see what was left as opposed to being charged a few hundred dollars by a body shop I’d say the cost was worth it.
Of the few things we’ve ever bought from infomercials, by far the most useful and maybe the first thing we bought was a Foodsaver. That’s the vacuum sealer you see on TV that really pulls a serious vacuum as opposed to the laughable Seal-A-Meal. We got our first one a little over 20 years ago and are only on our second unit in all that time. Naturally, we were reluctant to buy it because we worried it would be something we hardly used, but we couldn’t have been more wrong.
Besides using it to vacuum seal left-overs and raw meats, we use it nearly every day just to re-seal chip bags and cereal bags. You can bypass the vacuum action and just use it to reseal anything in a plastic bag and that works a lot better than a clothes pin or chip-clip. It’s probably the second most used countertop appliance after our microwave and it’s fun to pile 3-4 empty soda cans in a bag and show friends how much the vacuum will crush the crap out of the cans!
I even used it with a giant 1/2 gallon mason jar and some marshmallows to demonstrate air pressure to my kids’ school class when they were younger. They watched the marshmallows swell up as the air was drawn out then we let them sit in the vacuum until they had shrunk back down to normal size because the air will slowly leak out of the marshmallows, then I let the air in and they got “scrunched” down to tiny, wrinkly marshmallows. These kids are in college now and I did the demo when they were in the 4th grade, but they still remember that.
All-in-all I’d say it’s the best infomercial product ever because it has so many uses and it’s actually a quality product unlike so much cheaply made, under powered crap being sold. Having only 2 units in over 20 years that get used daily proves they aren’t crap. I forgot to mention our original one is still in use by some friends, we just wanted to upgrade to a fancier “one handed operation” model.
*POST AUTHOR*
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You know … you’re absolutely correct, Tom.
I, too, had a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer and it was nothing less than terrific. I could purchase meat in bulk at Costco or somesuch, divvy it up and package it so it lasted many times longer than usual. I remember not being on board with it to begin with (it was a hand-me-down, if memory serves, but after giving it a whirl, I was hooked. One of the few contraptions that worked and that stood the test of time.