2003-06-13 ~ 7:45 p.m.

She's Got It, Yeah Baby, She's Got Your Cash Because You're A Good Little Consumer

In November, I sent a commercial idea to Gillette. It was a really funny idea. I think what essentially happened was they read my idea, gave it the due attention that it was worth and dismissed it.

OR

They will use it sometime in the future like the products that I came up with a month before they were on the market. (Most recently being Wasabi Mayonnaise.)

Anyway, all that really came of me corresponding with Gillette was that I got on their mailing list. Junk mail is a fact of life anyway, and getting on a mailing list for a product that I actually use doesn't really bother me.

Last week, I got a package from Gillette. It had a bright, shiny, new PINK Venus shaver COMPLETE with new blade. My first thought was "HEY!! SWEET!!! They sent me a new shaver!! That saved me at LEAST 5 bucks right there." My second thought was "CRAP! I just shelled out 20 bucks for replacement heads on my old Venus shaver."

See, I am a picture perfect consumer. BECAUSE I am a picture perfect consumer, I automatically assume that if there is a new model that shares a piece of an old name, anything on it that has to be replaced regularly will NEVER, EVER have interchangeable parts. (You won't be able to use the new replacements for the old model and vice versa.)

So, imagine my surprise when, on closer inspection of my bright, shiny, new, PINK "Passion" Venus shaver, I noticed the old blue head on it. I even took it out of the box, got my blue shaver from the shower to compare and contrast. (Picture gorillas around a bicycle.) I looked at the head. Moisturizing strip, moisturizine strip. Three blades, three blades. Blue, blue. Tilts way back, tilts way back. I popped the head off of the bright, shiny, new, PINK "Passion" Venus shaver and my calcium encrusted, dull, old blue Venus shaver to see if the heads, did, in fact, fit.

Alas, it did.

Then I thought, "Can they fucking do that? Can they make a handle some pansy ass pink color, give the shaver a name like 'Passion', put 4 women in a convertible on a commercial and call it a new model?"

That would never work with cars. "I would like this Porsche Carrera GT." "Well, how about this Porsche Carrera GT, um, XL? (nod)" "Well, what the difference between the Porsche Carrera GT and the Porsche Carrera GT XL?" "Well, sir, OBVIOUSLY *that* one is red whereas *this* one is silver...and has extra letters."

What bothers me more is that the idea had to get passed executives. Men and women in suits. Men and women in suits who possibly drive Porche Carrera GT's. They should hold out for the XL.

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