Junk Mail

Recently a flyer for a cable company arrived on my mat, proclaiming in large letters:

“When life gets in the way of viewing – that’s when the struggle gets REAL!”

Now, I know that advertising is meant to be hyperbolic, but this just made me laugh. I could visualize a woman about to give birth, going to the hospital, suddenly sitting up and screaming, “Oh God! I’m going to miss Game of Thrones!! What should I do?” Sign up for RCN, I expect. Because of course every other struggle is not important, is it?

Life always comes first. TV viewing is a substitute for living, and always has been, no matter how exciting the special effects.

The casually insulting nature of this flyer is something we all tend to suffer and ignore. But after a while such insults, conveying the underlying sense that our actual lives are meaningless, must have a cost to the psyche, the soul, the spirit, of all of us.

How about some respect, Cable Company?