Age 50 has always been considered a significant milestone, spawning endless parties, toasts, silly hats and, dare I say it, trite doggerel. However, I have come to regard age 50 as merely another year, significant only because of our 10 digits and the resulting base 10 method of counting. Far more significant is age 54, the age when most advertisers regard you as nothing but worthless chaff as they hone in on the more desirable 18 to 54 age range. Here is where they concentrate their advertising dollars, thus driving entertainment options. I find myself slipping out of the desirable demographic. Increasingly TV shows are a total puzzlement and the ads indecipherable. (In a related development, the TV clicker has acquired the complexity of an airplane dashboard and somehow our marginal TV viewing keeps getting interrupted with shows about Hulk Hogan that have inexplicably been recorded.)
The situation reminds me of my splendid bowl of fresh raspberries, which nature has devised as nothing more than a come-hither advertisement to get me to the real agenda – attractive packaging hiding the real agenda of seed disperal. I adore raspberries and keenly await each summer as they come into season, putting them in yogurt or on toast. Although I would never buy cream expressly as a raspberry vehicle, on the few occasions that there is some cream left over a previous night’s party dessert, I will indulge with a bowl of raspberries and cream. In joyous anticipation I will note the small glistening globules of cream clinging to the septated raspberrylettes – a vision of pure beauty. And then like a bear or a bird, I will pass the seeds, the whole point of the exercise.
If only advertising were so painless. However, nature has not caught on to our efficient whisk-away plumbing system and continues to spew forth. Advertisers, however, are on to the game. Through countless focus groups, research and demographics they have concluded that I am fallow ground, and whatever seed they might present, however attractively packaged, will remain infertile, spawning no impulse purchases, no wild spending, no change in habits. So at age 54, no one bothers to serve me any fruit.
The missing words in the following poemare anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop and post) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with the previous or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.
You might think that turning 50 was bad, but I’ll tell you what is worse,
When you get to 54, you’ll really want to put the time clock in *******.
On the basis of focus groups, demographics and many other studies,
Advertisers ******* their budget for the young and not us fuddy-duddies,
No penalty is *******, TV has become a wasteland, barely worth a look,
Rejected, neglected and disaffected, now I reach for a book.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Answers: reverse, reserve, severer
Follow Liza Blue on:
Share:
