OK, so this feature is supposed to be about cosmetic promotion e-mails and light & fluffy blah blah, but for real? I’m gonna have to hijack this post and turn it into the last season of Growing Pains for a minute. Playing the part of Prescriptves, ladies and gentlemen, Tracey Gold:
“Carol! Carol, can you come here for a moment? (*taps foot in such a way as only a Seaver mom can*) What is the meaning of this (* retrieves clipping from back pocket of momjeans, proceeds to dangle it impatiently in daughter’s face*)”
(cut to Carol Seaver:)
“That’s not mine, mom! I’ve never seen it! I dunno what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t play dumb with me, young lady! You don’t think I know what this means?! You’re giving your products cheeky and slightly provocative names, I know exactly what this means. You’ve been hanging out with that no-good harlot BeneFit again! I’ve told you time & again, she is a BAD influence on you. She encourages you to dabble in hokeyness and cheesy gimmicks and frankly, as a mother, I’m concerned. Pandering to the lowes common denominator is not something I’ve raised my daughter to do! You make great foundations, you appeal to a variety of skin tones and textures! You’re a good kid. I don’t want you to feel like you have to coat all of your products in Pepto pink packaging and succumb to bad, retro cliches just to fit in! I know, at your age, it’s hard to avoid kitsch pressure, but you’ll be a lot better off if you do. I mean, do you want to end up looking like this in a few years:”
(cut to Carol)
“(*sniffles*) You’re right, I’m sorry mom! I never meant to hurt you. I was just experimenting, trying to boost my sales. In my heart, I think I know that this approach won’t work, this night cream won’t sell, and somebody from the marketing team is gonna have to be fired, and it’s all my fault! From now on, I’m just gonna stick to what I do best, and I’m also gonna cut my prices and do a lot more with my e-mail circulars than just offering that paltry free shipping. Anyone can do free shipping. That sad tranny MAC only ever does free shipping, and I’m better than that! Thanks Mom, I love you. Now let’s go make some oatmeal cookies until Mike comes home to regale us with his latest incorrigible shenanigans!”
(*aaaaaaaaaand scene.*)
This special episode of Insider Trading has been brought to you by BDJ’s e-mail inbox. If you like what you see here, feed the Trade Box attn: BDJ to buttercuppunch@gmail.com. Or play fantasy sitcom in the comments!
ButtercupPunch - "La clique, c’est chic!" 
April 1, 2008 at 9:12 am
For real. The owner of the salon that I grew up going to (and still stop in to get a haircut at when I’m home visiting) refused to stock Tigi BedHead products because of the Dumb Blonde line. “This is a women friendly salon, and I’m not selling any blondes a product that calls them dumb,” she’d say.
She was all kinds of awesome.
April 1, 2008 at 12:31 pm
my old roommate and i used to get really high and play a sort of ‘fantasy sitcom’, but instead of sitcom characters we would use our My Little Ponies (somehow we ended up w/2), and we would act out scenes from ridiculous scenarios with our friends. here is an example:
me: ok, you be rainbow pony as E, the doormat who has a slutty sister. i’ll be bitchy, judgemental K as yellow pony, action!
rainbow pony: so kristin, do you still have all those nuova rings left?
yellow pony: yeah, they’re in my fridge.
RP: oh, coooooool.
YP: why?
RP: um, well, because rene was hoping that she could have them. or like, buy them off you or whatever.
YP: why? she doesn’t have a boyfriend.
RP: no, but she just wants to be on birth control to be safe
YP: she’s seeing a bunch of guys? how many?
RP: oh, you know rene always has a ton of guys after her
YP: well how many?
RP: um, like 9, i think?
YP: i’m not giving you my rings so that your slutty sister can go around banging everyone in the south bay!
RP: geez, she isn’t a slut! she isn’t even sleeping with all of them…she’s just popular
YP: yeah, right. just because your clown-titted, fucking whore of a sister doesn’t want to have another abortion doesn’t mean that i should give her my rings! she shouldn’t be on birth control anyway. guys should wrap that shit up! not like everyone in LA county doesn’t already know about her whoreificness, but what if she lets some tourist loser fuck her bareback. you know that diseased, wart-riddled rotten vagina of hers will end up causing a pandemic!
RP: please don’t talk about my sister like that
YP: i’ll stop calling her a whore when she stops acting like a whore and closes her skanky spray tanned legs! WHOOOOORE!!!!
scene
um, yeah. we smoked a lot of weed, and we didn’t have a TV. is it obvious?
April 1, 2008 at 5:45 pm
You can’t go wrong with a Growing Pains reference.
Wiggles, I used to do one-woman shows at lunch in high school, acting out movies and/or our books for English with gummy bears. Romeo + Juliet, Wuthering Heights and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were among my victims…
April 1, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Perscriptives, don’t fall into Benefit’s clique, Philosophy is already on her coat tails.
April 2, 2008 at 4:39 am
I am so glad Cameron Kirk supports creationism because nothing short of God could have created a man so perfect.
May 5, 2008 at 11:51 am
[…] takes any of it. And you don’t mind it so much, except when her life starts to seem like the later seasons of Growing Pains. When that happens, you conveniently have to “work” or “visit […]