KELOLAND.com Blogs

With sunshine one day followed by snow the next, this is my studious season. 

My field of study this year is fine print.  Fine print has us in a lot of trouble.  The economy is a train wreck because people don’t take the time to read the fine print on their mortgages and credit cards, not that most of us could understand it if we took the time. 

But the real fine print is on your television screen.  I decided to see what it said, so I donned my Sherlock Holmes cap, grabbed my magnifying glass, taped a couple of hours of soap operas and started studying between the 500 lines or so on my conventional TV screen, figuring: “This is a piece of cake.” 

 

This commercial turned out to be fine print- free, but I

checked for subliminal messages anyway.

Well, it tain’t.  Granted I have a cheapy television, a cheapy vcr and a cheapy magnifying glass.  Maybe a 42 inch HDTV would help.  Like fingerprints on CSI, I got a bunch of “partials,” mostly.  On the odd chance that you can slo-mo the commercials or still frame them clearly, the ones you really want to read and should read are shades of white, white letters and a white background.

The most popular thing they say, when you can read them, is: “Individual results may vary.”  Another favorite is: “If symptoms persist, see your doctor.”  They should have had those on these anti-cholesterol drugs that don’t work.  Or maybe they did and we couldn’t read them.   The health product ones are the best, the ones that advise me to read their ad in Weight Watchers Magazine or Cooking Light.  Does that strike you as my kind of reading material? 

The most enlightening health ad is for Detrol LA which supposedly controls your overactive bladder.  The fine print helpfully points out: “Symptoms of overactive bladder include frequent, sudden urges to go to the bathroom.”  Duh.

Even binoculars couldn’t clear some of them up.  Of course, Trobec’s blizzard of the century alert was a distraction. 

Crest is pushing some sort of spinning toothbrush that requires three lines of advice that are totally unreadable. 

Lyrica for fibromyalgia advises…in fine print…that it may cause side effects “including swelling of the face, mouth, lips, gums, tongue or neck.”  Isn’t that pretty much your whole head? 

Foods are good at white lining.  Jamie Lee Curtis tells me that Activia Yogurt is good for something.  The fine print says something is “scientifically proven,” but the rest becomes unreadable against a well-toned white belly.  Jamie Lee’s?  Wouldn’t you think if you had science going for you, you would want to billboard it?   After extolling the benefits of eating Wheat Thins, the fine print tells me that this healthy stuff is naturally and artificially flavored. 

I find that most commercials, at least the ones in three hours of soap operas, have squinty print.  Most that don’t have you squinting involve food.  Campbell’s Soup, Pillsbury Crescents, and Bush beans have no quasi-secrets.  But just a minute here.  Are they telling me beans have no side effects?  Didn’t they see the Blazing Saddles campfire scene?  And that dog in their commercials looks awfully guilty about something. 

The cell phone ones are just beyond me, mostly financial side effects of the plan they’re pitching.  I’ve got a plan for about 40 dollars a month with the U.S. as my roaming area with enough minutes to keep China and India talking to each other forever.  Why do I need all these circles and stuff?   It should warn me about dead spots. 

There’s one for Sears financing that, on two pages, takes ten unreadable lines to explain. 

I spotted one, not in this batch, for an insurance company I think, that listed about half the states in fine print.  I think they were telling you they couldn’t do business there.  Does that tell us something about the other half? 

But here’s my favorite.  Tada!  It’s a home pregnancy test about which the fine print tells us thus:

“5 days sooner than waiting until you’ve missed your period.

51% of pregnant women get results five days sooner.

82% get results four days sooner.

90 %get results three days sooner.

95% get results two days sooner.”

I expected the next to line read that 100 percent found out they were pregnant before they even did the deed.  But no.  It goes on:

“99 % accurate at detecting typical pregnancy hormone levels.  Note that hormone levels may vary.  See product insert.”  Pregnancy.  Now there’s where you would want an “individual variable.”

What it doesn’t say is if it’s a one-time use deal or a keeper.  It’s sleek and digital and you just hate to throw something like that away, like that old white roaster the Church Ladies in Hendricks just can’t part with even though it hasn’t worked in years.

*There’s nothing to read here.  I just wanted to turn the tables on some ad agency lawyer trying to read the fine print.  Gray on white is the best I could do.