Just when you thought it was safe again to read the newspapers, you get ambushed by some medical-type articles but mostly all sorts of advertisements, telling you to do something about this or that part of your body.
My colleague Gloria Chandy must have noticed this deluge too. In her editor's note in the magazine supplement Mind Your Body (25 Nov), she wrote that such ads "urge people to part with their hard-earned cash to address impending horrors like spare tyres, sagging upper arms, eyebags, thunder thighs and love handles."
I second this admonishment of hers: "A gradual change of wardrobe will suffice as the years roll by and your figure goes slightly to pot. (Bottom-heavy middle-aged women who insist on wearing tights, please note)."
That made me think of the wag who twisted a lovely romantic song and retitled it "The first time ever I saw her base."
But what tickled me too were her descriptors like thunder thighs and love handles. So, drum roll please from the Limb-o Rock Band, as I run through a (selective) organ recital.
Let's start with what's right on top. I am a victim of the "hair yesterday, gone today" tonsorial toll. But could it have been my own undoing? I did my PhD in my late forties. "As a result, you have Permanent hair Damage now," someone said. I must have looked nonplussed. "You probably have Permanent head Damage too."
But if you believe the hair treatment ads, there's nothing that money (the customer's of course) can't do.
Male pattern baldness? No prob. Female pattern baldness? Ditto. Fear of the end of your hair follicles? Never fear, follicle cloning is here, touted as the cutting edge in-thing now, you are told. And the ads always almost feature someone in a white gown: a trichologist. But do note that a trichologist is not a medical healthcare worker.
The eyes? There are ads galore, be it for medical procedures like cataract and glaucoma surgery to aesthetic ones like implantable contact lenses. One ad even advertises its price for "two eyes", not "both eyes". So, A and B can go together and have one eye each fixed?
Skin? "Restore your damaged skin... You are in possession of your own beauty. We help you to own it." I wanna recruit that copywriter to become a copyeditor.
Weight? "It's amazing! I lost 2 kg in 2 weeks without dieting." So? I know of people who lost 60-plus kg in that time. They got divorced.
The copywriters in all these ads sure had a field day. One ad teased: "Have you been thinking about restoring your youthful curves?" (Hmmm, mine was a cute little yellow Honda 600 car but it has long since gone to the junkyard).
Indeed, the torso is prime meat, er, target, for the ads. Ever since the era of Hollywood, the ideal woman has to have an "hour-glass" figure and the ideal man a set of "six-pack abs". More recently, one would be blind to not notice the plethora of ads telling women they do not need to suffer unsatisfactory, small, sagging, unequal-sized, post-natal, menopausal, etc, breasts. Keep abreast of today's non-invasive treatments and get a "fuller-looking bust", the ads urge. I guess they expect gratitude after that: thanks for the mammaries?
As for six-pack abs for the men? Curious about what these look like (hey, I'm in the "chest in, stomach out" category), I did a Goggle check for such images. Ya, they look like the a six-pack all right -- the six-pack an pan bread I buy from my local breadshop.
Checking on what love handles are, I found some interesting explanations on this site, http://www.urbandictionarv.com/
Likewise, check it out too for thunder thighs. I was intrigued by the "thunder" part and had asked around, but no one seemed to know its origin.
So, there. I am not going any further down the body, and end up being anal retentive but I shall conclude with this "Christmas tree story" my brother sent me recently:
The family is sitting at the dinner table. The son asks his father,'Dad,
how many kinds of boobies are there?'
The father, surprised,answers, 'Well son, there's three kinds of breasts. In her twenties, a woman's
breasts are like melons, round & firm. In her thirties & forties,they are like pears, still nice, but hanging a bit. After fifty, they are like onions.' 'Onions?' 'Yes, you see them, and they make you cry.'
This infuriated his wife and daughter so the daughter says, 'Mom,how many
types of 'willies' are there?'
The mother, surprised, smiles and answers, 'Well dear, a man goes through three phases.
In his twenties, his willie is like an oak tree, mighty and hard. In his thirties & forties, it's like
a birch tree, flexible but reliable. After his fifties, it is like a Christmas tree.'
'A Christmas tree??'
'Yes dear, dead from the root up and the balls are for decoration only.'
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