Now How Much Would You Pay?

I don't keep regular hours or at least regular hours that many would recognize as such. I set my alarm for half past four in the morning and more often than not turn it off because I'm already up. I have some health stuff I do: as in take some meds, get some glucose levels, measure blood pressure (for those who always fear I could have a stroke, the good news, my doctor says, is that I'm a carrier), catch up on some interweb stuff and change to go to the gym.

It's not actually a gym, it's Planet Fitness which is a lot of machines I sort of know how to use and a lot of clanky weight lifting and toning machines about which I know nothing except to stay away, far away, from them and try not to let any of whatever it is they do get on me.

This is a week I do the treadmill. There is something horribly symbolic I'm sure about my being on a treadmill in a small town near the Connecticut coast at a little after four on a weekday morning, a life lesson begging to be learned but I am not going to take the bait on that. There a lot of people around the world who dream of a roof to live under, or a bowl of food to eat and potable water to drink so I run on the treadmill and listen to and watch CNN and CBS News in the headphones and on the overhead big screen televisions.

Down the line, there's Fox News and Lifetime television, a station of what seems to always be non-stop infomercials, local over the air TV stations and ESPN. Something for everyone, though I don't know who defined the something or quantified the everyone.

There's a lot of advertising for people to fix their back taxes at oh bright early and on more than one occasion in the last week, two different ads have run back to back for two different services. One, I forget which, reduced a couple's taxes from over $48,000 to under two hundred. I'm wondering how much mire than my share of that stealth bomber I paid for if that's what happens on a regular basis at the IRS.

George Foreman is on at the top of just about any hour on every station of TV I've ever seen while on the treadmill, but he's not peddling the grill but help for fellow-inventors, I guess because I'm supposed to pretend he invented the grill that bears his name. Or electricity. Or maybe it's the meat the electricity of the grill cooks. When I treadmill, I'm in the zone and details get lost in the churn.

Quite frankly the variety of stuff, sorry a better word doesn't occur to me at the moment, you can purchase by calling right now or going on line is only topped by the amount of that very same stuff you can get a second one of right now absolutely free, 'just pay a separate fee.'

I've trodden hundreds if not thousands of miles and heard that pitch a billion times and I still cannot figure it out. Something is either 'absolutely free' OR I have to buy it. Telling me it's the former, right after I do the latter, I'm pretty sure means I didn't get it for absolutely free, no matter how many times you tell me otherwise.

It goes for copper cookware, a battle lantern with LEDs that the person in the commercial puts through hell, but it still works every time, the diabetes hotline, knee braces, something better than a Neti pot and Mike Lindell's pillows you can 'warsh' he says (like Goofy says gawrsh to Mickey).

All of these items are far better than mere TwoFers because they're absolutely free right after I pay a separate fee. And I keep wondering how did 24-hour-a-day TV exist before all night gyms with clients feeling single and buying double of everything, after "just paying a separate fee."
-bill kenny