Wednesday, November 21, 2007

macon on my mind

I found myself both envious and appalled yesterday as I watched Oprah and her FedEx elves on TV. They were shooting from Macon, Georgia, and Oprah was doing her annual Favorite Things episode, which I've never seen before. It was ... unbelievable. Oprah, whose wealth is officially beyond my comprehension, sent every member of the audience home with a Scrabble game, Josh Grobin Christmas CD, loungewear, KitchenAid Artisan mixer, panini maker, $250 Target gift card, and more ... and to top it all off ... a $3,800 refrigerator with a flat-panel TV/DVD player/computer on the front door. People in the audience were falling all over themselves when they saw that one! The refrigerators will be delivered to each audience member's home and installed, the old ones taken away to be recycled or given to someone in need. Aside from that little nod to people in need, the whole show was such a paeon to consumerism that I felt a little ill. (OK, she did have a gift basket of environmentally friendly "green" cleaning products, saying, "I probably love to clean so much because I don't have to!") Yet and still, I would have been pretty darn thrilled to go home with that KitchenAid mixer! Not that I have room for one in the kitchen, and not that I'm ready to say goodbye to my beloved handheld mixer quite yet, but it's something I find myself salivating over in stores around the holidays. Such mixed emotions over the power of money!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This time of year is full of, "I want it, I need it, I'll die if I don't get it..." attitude in the toy store.

It kills me to see the kind of toys they come up with now. Baby Alive is so freaking U-G-L-Y, she ain't got no alibi UGLY, that she is scary.

Not only will she give you nightmares with her freakishly large eyeballs, she POOPs! What mom wants to clean up another baby's bottom (granted it's fake) after getting the real one to use the potty?

My baby dolls used to eat and poop & all that stuff 30+ years ago... in my IMAGINATION!

But then----------

I see a group of men get together to make a whole bunch of kids happy by buying Christmas for the locals. Yesterday that group spent $1000+ & then they sent another friend to pick up more today.. that topped out his car (the only space left was the driver's seat) & it hit just under $1000.

A week ago, a man and his wheelchair-bound wife were piling up toys left and right. Turned out that they buy every kid on the block a toy, so nobody will be left out Dec. 25. (It was all individual gifts, so they put thought into each item.)

That kind of stuff is what makes my job so easy!

You gotta love Oprah. She's the girl from Mississippi that made it & gives some of it back.

Emilie said...

"She's the girl from Mississippi that made it & gives some of it back."

That's true, Elizabeth. It is generous of Oprah to give so much back. And she did choose Macon, Ga., which isn't exactly the center of affluence in our country, to dole out her favorite things. I guess I just feel she's gotten caught up in a consumeristic attitude, too, and she promotes it to a lot of susceptible viewers. But maybe it's not all bad. Am I being mean-spirited? :-)

Anonymous said...

No, she does go a bit over the top!