We live is a scary world, there’s no doubt about it. Or maybe there is. Maybe it just seems scary because the media (um, which I’m part of, I guess) takes great delight in portraying things like shower mold and day-old bread as harbingers of doom on a par with nuclear war and universal Armageddon.
Every time an angry hillbilly sends some congressman a threatening letter laced with baby powder, TV anchors across the country blow a blood vessel trying to be the first to inform viewers that the letter could have been laced with anthrax! Every summer squall is a “narrowly averted disaster” that might have decimated entire cities! Each piece of space debris drifting within ten million miles of Earth could be a planet-killing asteroid. Eek!
It’s a wonder we’re not all wearing football helmets and hiding beneath our beds.
The media folks (me again!) are just trying to glean viewers, of course, in an effort to generate more advertising revenue. It’s hard to blame ‘em. Times are tough and that industrial strength hairspray news anchors use doesn’t come cheap.
On the plus side, all this fear-mongering has created a whole new economic market; anti-Armageddon preparedness merchandise. Items on the “be ready or perish” list include nose filters that wouldn’t stop an anemic cold virus, black plastic film to put over your windows in case of a nearby nuclear blast (it won’t stop the blast, but at least you won’t see it coming), and 50-gallon-drum-sized tanks of tap water that are somehow going to be more palatable post-doomsday than the stuff in the Evian bottles down at the supermarket.
Since people are for the most part nuts, all of this stuff actually sells. Usually for big bucks.
The market is so good, in fact, that merchandisers have been forced to get a little creative just to stand out in an overly-saturated market. One of the best examples of this is an item “invented” by Elena Bodnar, Raphael Lee, and Sandra Marijan, who recently applied for a patent for their “Garment device convertible to one or more facemasks.”
Which garment, exactly? A bra. Yup. I couldn’t make this stuff up, folks.
Their terror-battling brassiere consists of a filter device, a valve device, and two, um, face masks. The face masks, when not being used to fight terrorists, double as, well, you know what they double as.
I have to admit, I love this idea. But it does present a few problems.
First off, women with ample, um, “face mask holders” already seem to get more dates. With potential terrorists lurking around every corner, what guy is going to want to spend time with a more modestly-endowed woman? The Pamela Anderson’s of the world already see more than their share of romance. Once the “gas mask bra” hits the market, girls who look like Calista Flockhart are going to start having a lot of lonely Friday nights.
Also, some unscrupulous men (not me) might take advantage of the situation. I can see it now. Date night at the movies and all of a sudden a 16-year-old boy in the front row leaps from his seat and yells, “Oh no, I smell Sarin gas!”
Ten seconds later, 200 women have their faces covered and, ahem, other parts exposed. Things could get ugly fast. Or not, depending on your point of view.
The point is, the terror-bra just scratches the surface of what I see as a new, lucrative market – underwear that defends truth, justice, and the American way!
Jock straps that can, in an emergency, double as emergency grenade launchers! Boxer shorts for fat men that also serve as emergency shelters! Socks that – when stuffed with C4 and coated with axle grease – become “sticky bombs.” (And yeah, I know Tom Hanks did this in Saving Private Ryan, but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t yet applied for a patent. I intend to.)
The sky’s the limit! And speaking of the sky, keep an eye out – anything could fall from there!
Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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