In my meandering (I call it meandering, some call it procrastination) through the overlord Google, I came across my old blog on the supreme entity Google’s blogspot. While I continue plodding away on a short story that is causing me to question everything I thought I was, please enjoy this timeless entry. Note the 2012 date. Yours, cb
Friday, November 23, 2012
A Stress-Free Way To Pay Bills And Get Instant Cash!
I still anticipate the arrival of daily mail. Not the electronic kind, but the kind where a guy in uniform walks up to your house and drops letters off in a thing called a mailbox. Some mailboxes are attached to the exterior of a house, some houses have slots in their doors for letters to be inserted, and in apartment buildings, residents have little individual mail slots or boxes where they collect mail. Mail. Coming home to mail. Maybe a postcard from a friend vacationing in the Swiss Alps, or a card acknowledging a milestone or a holiday. Mail. From Canada Post!
Ah, the romance.
Today I received this gem from my credit union.
Dear Carolyn,
Imagine you have $511.28 in your chequing account.
Now imagine writing a cheque for $1000 … $1500 … or even $5000 without any concern that it will “bounce”. This is the straightforward, honest benefit of having an Advantage Line Of Credit.
By using your Advantage Line Of Credit, you increase the balance in your chequing account so you can pay unexpected bills …cover vacation expenses …or other occasional blips in your cash flow … (I stopped reading after this).
Now, I could be wrong, and please correct me if I am, but isn't this sort of marketing and/or economic policy what created the U.S. government calls the “fiscal cliff”. But – how could it be? The benefit of having an Advantage Line Of Credit is straightforward and honest!
I mean, like, hey, I gotta go to Aruba. That’s an occasional blip in my lifestyle. Fer sure. But my cash flow is trickling. It might be an infection, I dunno. Hey - I’ll write a cheque for $5000 – that should take care of the yuck, like, ya.
Fiscal Cliff: Hey, cheque! I wanna see you bounce! Toss yourself off me!
Cheque: But I can’t bounce. It says so in the direct mail campaign.
Fiscal Cliff: I don’t believe it. Show me! First rule of storytelling – show, don’t tell!
Cheque: Okay, Cliff. Watch me soar muthafecker!
SFX: Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
THIS AD BROUGHT TO YOU BY
FRIENDLY GUYS BANKRUPTCY TRUSTEES
FRIENDLY GUYS: MAKING IT ALL GO AWAY
And people ask me why I get headaches.
Whoever conceived, wrote and approved the copy for the Advantage Line Of Credit should be forced to take out an Advantage Line Of Credit, rack it up without any enjoyment, and suffer the torment of financial insecurity. And when they cried for mercy, all they’d hear is a ‘blip’ sound.
It’s stuff like this that’s causing the middle class to collapse.
Me, I’m still waiting for a postcard from the Swiss Alps.