I know what you bought last summer

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by admin in Brandon Faber

You just can’t resist, can you? Sitting there, mesmerized, transfixed, and somehow powerless to just say “no”.

Clutching your credit card with sweaty palms, eyes glazed like the finest of Durban dock dwellers, you reach for your phone.”Must buy now,” you rock back and forth on your couch as you repeat the mantra of the Saturday Glomail Shopper. “Hmmm, weekend specials… must have new plastic thing that slices stuff (and is easy to clean).”

I am convinced that the power behind Glomail’s indoctrination lies in the bushy eyebrows of the 80’s (News presenter-suit-wearing) show host guy. “It’s my promise, to you!” he says whilst rudely pointing at the herd of credit shopping cattle – with both hands, nogals.

If you record one of these Glomail “weekend special” bonanza broadcasts, and you play it backwards, I bet you will hear the sound of sinister giggling and chants, pleading for the souls of those whom we dare not speak of:

The witless Armies of American Express, the Vacuous Visa throng, the Melancholic masses from MasterCard. They are the true force behind the rise and rise of bushy-eye-brow-man and his crusade to decimate the disposable income of the (very) average shopper.

Their homes, chock-a-block with fads, crazes, gym pills that magically “peel away the pounds” as you continue to eat like a professional darts player. Cupboards hide four varieties of floor whizz sweeper things, each with an extra cleaning pad, cleverly obtained through the financially savvy decision to “buy now”.
Why is it that we have warning signs on alcohol and cigarettes, and force casinos to declare that winners know when to stop, but there is no disclaimer, no warning, no assistance for the intellectually challenged citizens who just cannot say “no” to Captain eye-brow and his crew?

There should be a national outcry and demands of proof for the claims made when flogging magic beans, stairways to heaven and other “must have” goodies. But there’s none. Our silence deafening as we condone the exploitation of the masses, defenseless against the supernatural power of the man with the thousand yard stare.



“Damn those eyes!” they yell in fits of rage as yet another delivery van arrives with their latest purchase. “I can’t even remember buying anything. . . Damn those eyes!”

In messed heaps they sit, quietly surrounded by their plethora of worthless worldly possessions. They need our help, they need our guidance, they need this nation to stand up and with one voice declare that we shall tolerate no more.

They need us to be strong, to bravely fight their fight, to rise above the daze of that man’s gaze and release our mortal brothers and sisters from his iron grip.

Down with swirly green duster thingies! Down “power pack” gizmos that “flatten abs in ten minutes a day”! Down with Made in China plastic pedicure paraphernalia. . . down with bad suits, bad hair, bad scripts, bad lighting and the relentless pointing of fingers at cattle-class consumers!

The uprising starts today. . .

“It’s my promise, to you.”

Read more about the author: Brandon Faber