I'm a car guy. Love the classics--old Camaros, Mustangs, Chargers, Challengers, GTO's, Chevelles, Beetles, Microbuses, DeLoreans...which one's my favorite depends on whether there's one sitting in front of me.
Well, second-favorite. The X-11 is #1.
Anyway, there's an erectile disfunction pill commercial that bugs the living crap out of me. Our guy's driving his shiny, nicely-cared-for '69 Camaro through the desert. Car starts to overheat and steam, so he pulls into a rustic little gas station.
He goes in, buys what looks to be a 1.5-liter bottle of water from the cooler, takes a swig, and pours the rest into the hot radiator. No anti-freeze, and only the 1.5 liters, about a quart and a half, into a cooling system that takes a couple of gallons.
Didn't fix whatever was causing the overheating, either, apparently.
The voice-over calls our guy--and the viewer--part of the generation that knows how to "get things done." Really? He pops a hot radiator cap off (no rag?), pours cold water into a hot engine, doesn't try to figure out the problem. Didn't "get things done," really.
Hops back into the car, drives for hours and hours more before pulling into his 2-car driveway sometime in the evening or nighttime.
Yeah, I know, it's just a commercial; the "steam" was probably from a fire extinguisher; the manly guy with the car and erectile troubles doesn't have either one, he just got paid scale for showing up, and like that. After the shoot was done, the real owner took the car back to its garage.
But the clumsiness of the story kind of makes fun of those little pecker-pills: here's a guy who doesn't know what he's doing, possibly overheating and destroying the (expensive) engine in a rare (very expensive) car because he can't maintain it properly (wasn't that a mechanic in front of the gas station?). He's apparently also taking those pills. Did he put as much thought into using them as he did in maintaining the car?
I'm just glad I'm not the only Car Guy to be aggravated by this ad.
Thursday Night Open Thread
3 hours ago
When I was 15 and visiting family one summer, I made a trip with them between Jacksonville and Dothan. We stopped in at a gas station. While the rest of the family was on a potty break, I sat waiting for them. I watched as this man pulled in, open the hood of his car, and like an idiot while looking over the radiator cap, start to turn it. I watched in amazement that he would even touch that cap immediately without a rag. I watched stunned that he would put his head over the engine. And I watched horrified and also thinking 'you dumb fuck' as the steam pressure exploded like a geyser in his face.
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