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 what 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 .
It’s just an occasional blip in my lifestyle. Fer sure. My cash flow is trickling. It might
be an infection, I dunno. 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 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.
