Goldendale Op/Ed

But wait... order now

A column by Karen Henslee

     I’m thinking about ordering one of those magic chamois cloths I’ve been seeing advertised.
     I can hardly pass up such a great deal. Can you blame me? After all, look at what you get if you order within the next 15 minutes! Not just one, not just two... no, if you order right away (because they can’t do this all day, of course), you can get two of the large chamois and two of the medium size for the ultra-low price of only $9.99!
     And what about the many chopping/slicing/cutting devices? Slicing knives? Stain remover? And what about that guy that sells that oxy-something. He yells as if we’re all in the kitchen getting a snack when his ad comes on.
     The guys are great salesmen. It’s obvious they’re more accustomed to working at carnivals and state fairs. One of them even has one of those portable microphones attached to his head. What’s that all about?
     And they’re so comfortable with the chamois, or the handy-dandy chopper, that they can make them almost sit up and do tricks.
     No wonder they put these ads on later in the evening when folks are relaxing and letting their dinner settle. That’s when our defenses are down. And when we absolutely must have it... whatever “it” is.
     I fell for this sort of thing when I was about 13 years old, while wandering amidst all of the booths at the Puyallup Fair. I bought a set of trick playing cards. I really wanted to be able to wow my friends with my expert handling of the deck of cards... the way the guy did. And he certainly lead us to believe it would be just as easy for us as it was for him. But alas, either my hands were too small, or not nimble enough - I could produce no such amazing feats, and the deck of cards was quickly cast aside.
     Over the years, we’ve purchased one of those great sandwich grilling machines, an ultimate chopper-thing, some stuff that if you use it on your heavily lime-scaled shower door, will leave it sparkling clean and looking like new... yes, I can certainly see that a magic chamois is next on the list.
     I’m thinking that once these guys move on to the next best thing, they should go into politics. Not the yelling guy though, what kind of foreign relations would we have? Of course maybe we could save money on long distance phone calls.