Call Now! Musings on the Info-Mercial.

I wonder how many of us have done it. I know I have. we've sat there in front of the screen when we were going to move on, we've listened to the annoyingly hyped up voice, we've watched, those of us who can, the oh so enticing gadget that we're suddenly sure is just the thing needed to make life perfect being used with absolute ease, and we believe it when we're told that either "It's so much fun!" or: "Clean up is a breeze!". Then we listen to the blandishments, the offers, the slashing of the price, the bonuses we'll get if we only call now! And we hurry to the phone and hand over our dollar for that piece of exercise machinery or kitchen equipment that's either going to sit in the corner or the cupboard for a long time or, if we're very unlucky as I was, end up on Ebay or in the trash.

I'm an old pro where shopping info-mercials are concerned. Back in the early noughties I was a housewife at a very dead end, going nowhere but up the wall, and all I had to do was watch the television. I cannot tell you how many exercise machines, blenders, juicers, roticerie ovens, knives, dicers, slicers, plastic fishing bate lures, makeup, hair removers and beauty creams have wasted half hours of my day. I even bought some of them and, given that when my life got pared down to two boxes and two suitcases, none of the shopping channel's must-haves were deemed among the life's essentials without which I didn't want to live, you'd think I'd be hardened to their seductive wiles by now.

But then came the night I couldn't sleep, I was watching TV on line, an info-mercial for an exercise DvD came on instead of the cookery show I wanted and I snarked on Twitter. Did info-mercials, I snarled, ever sell anything worth having? Yes, answered a good friend. How about the two kitchen machines that I regularly raved about and sometimes podcasted. Go check out Youtube if I didn't believe him. What, call him a liar? I wouldn't dare! And then someone told me about another kitchen gadget which he said was awesome. Let us call it the Shropshire Smasher.

Now everyone knows I'm a foodie, a kitchen geek and if you didn't know I'll tell you that in former lives I had cupboards and counters full of kitchen gadgets from useful to useless and everywhere in between. So the mention of a gizmo of which I had never heard sent me panting eagerly, hot fingers to Youtube to check it out. And there, dear reader, was the half-hour info-mercial in all its glory!

I sat and listened while the technology of the thing was explained. While its inventor waxed lyrical about all the amazing things that could and probably would happen to you if you just used it once a day! I watched while he put ingredients into this thing, added a little water, let the smasher do its work and diclaired the result delicious.

Then came the bit that really gets you. The filmed inserts. People who say that since they bought their Shropshire Smasher life has changed for the better. Their cholesterol is down, their arthritis has improved, they've' lost weight. One tearful lady hit me right in the guts. She was a Migraine sufferer. Since buying and using her Smasher she hasn't had one Migraine. Not one! Her words, not mine.

By this time I was drooling. The marketeers had worked their magic spell on me and if it had been a live info-mercial instead of a Youtube video the purveyors of the Smasher would have got my money. I freely admit as much.

Luckily for me it was the middle of the night, I was tired, I went to sleep and when I woke up I began to think. Now, everyone probably knows exactly which kitchen gadget I'm talking about here, I'm not naming it on account of I have no darn right to diss what I have never tried. For all I know using it every day, in exactly the way specified, may do everything its inventor and marketers say it does. But, I thought, essentially, it's a smoothie maker. It might be the best darn smoothie maker there is, but it's a smoothie maker and one, by the way, which doesnt' use any ice and I cannot stand a blood warm smoothie.

Secondly, however good it may be for me, am I really going to drink a mixture of spinach, banana, pear, apple and spring water, especially if I have to prep the fruit and veg first? How many people have raspberries and rocket leaves lying around in their fridge? Gogee berries may be a great anti-oxideant and flax seeds high on omega 3, but do I want to pay the extra dollar on the weekly shopping bill to get them? Just for my breakfast? Is a 600 watt motor all that powerful, hey, the machine I have has that, in fact it has more.

And then you start thinking: Those people who say their lives are so much better could be one hundred per cent genuine, or they could be actors! how can you possibly know? Cynical, yes very probably. You think of the bill you didn't pay, the present for your other half you want to buy, other uses you could put that dollar to, and, well speaking for myself, I didn't buy it.

The thing is, it's not supposed to end that way, not at all. I've admitted that if I'd not been given time to think I'd own a Shropshire Smasher right this minute. But you're not given time to think. You're dazzled, coaxed, chivvied, persuaded that: "You owe it to yourself" and, here's the killer! "If you're not completely satisfied we'll give you your money back!". Oh yeah, right! Ever tried that? They do, but it's such a hassle you end up wishing fervently you'd just cut your losses! If the thing, whatever it is, has caught your imagination you want it and you're told: "Call now!".

It's clever. It works! The TV shopping industry is worth billions of dollars and, last I looked, TV shopping channels were doing nothing but increasing.

I'm not saying that all TV shopping's bad, even that info-mercials are all bad. I have to honestly admit that nothing I personally ever bought off one of these has stayed with me for any real length of time, but other people might have found different. However there is a TV shopping channel I bought extensively from back in the late nineties, the customer service was second to none, the merchandise was excellent and they really did refund your money if you didn't like the goods, hassle free. They're still going, though at the moment they mostly only seem to sell jewelry.

The thing I am uncomfortable with is the impulse buy. People who don't have much money could be enticed into spending what they could put to better use on - not something they don't need, hey! Who am I to tell anyone what to put their dollar down for, but on some sub-standard piece of tat when there's better stuff out there for the same money or less.

So am I doing a great aunt and saying don't buy it? No, I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what to buy. What I would say is to do what I needed to do over the Smasher. Really think about it. Take some time. Check out what else is out there. Don't, whatever you do, Call Now!