"Ann W. Griffith - Captive Audience" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith Ann W)

Having promised, though, there was nothing to do but get it over with. Billy had to come along too, naturally-both the children loved visiting the supermarket more than most anything else. They made their way down the aisles through a chorus of "Try me . . . Try me . . . Here is the newer, creamier . . . Mother, your children will . . . Kiddies, ask Mom to pick the bright green and red package . . . Here I am, right here, the shortening all your friends have been telling, you about . . . . "

Billy listened to as many as he could while they were passing by, and for the thousandth time wished that he could hear the store-type commercials at home. Why, some of them were just as good as the home-type!

He always tried to talk the supermarket checkers out of tearing off the Buy-Me-Discs, but they always grumbled that them was their orders and they didn't have no time to bother with him. That was one of the reasons Billy had long since decided to be a supermarket checker himself when he grew up.

Think of it! Not only would you hear the swell home-type commercials all day while you worked, and be hep to the very latest ones, but you'd get to hear all the store commercials too. And what with the thousands of Buy-Me-Discs he'd be tearing off, as a checker, he bet he could slip some into his pockets from time to time, and then wouldn't his friends envy him, being able to receive store-type commercials at home!

They reached the cereal area, and as always the children were entranced. Their faces shone with excitement as they picked up one box after another, to hear the commercials more clearly. There were sounds of gunfire; all kinds of snapping, crackling, and popping; there were loud shouts of "CRISPIER! NUTTIER! YUMMIER!"

There were more modulated appeals, addressed to Mother, about increased nourishment and energy-building; there were the voices of athletes, urging the kids to come on and be one of the gang; there were whinnies of horses and explosive sounds of jets and rockets; there were cowboy songs and hillbilly songs and rhymes and jingles and bands and quartets and trios! Poor Kitty! How could she ever choose?

Mavis waited patiently for twenty minutes, enjoying the children's pleasure even though her headache was growing worse, and then told Kitty that she really must make up her mind.
"OK, Mom, I'll take this one this time," said Kitty.

She held the box close to her mother's ear. "Listen to it, Mom, isn't it swell! , Mavis heard a shattering command, "FORWARD, MARCH!" and then what sounded like a thousand marching men. "Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch," they were shouting in unison, above the noise of their marching feet, and a male chorus was singing something about Crunchies were marching to your breakfast table, right into your cereal bowl.

Suddenly inexplicably, Mavis felt she couldn't stand this every morning. "No, Kitty," she said, rather harshly, "you can't have that one. I won't have all that marching and shouting at breakfast!" Kitty's pretty face turned to a thundercloud, and tears sprang into her eyes. "I'll tell Daddy what you said!

I'll tell Daddy what you said! I'll tell Daddy if you don't let me have it!" Mavis came to her senses as quickly as she had taken leave of them. "I'm sorry, dear, I don't know what came over me. Of course you can have it. It's a very nice one. Now let's hurry on home so we can give you your permanent before Grandmother comes."

Grandmother arrived just in time for dinner. She kissed the children warmly, though they didn't remember her, and seemed glad to see Mavis and Fred. But it soon became clear that she was the same old Grandmother. She tried, at table, to shout above the dinner commercials, until Mavis had to shush her or the family would have missed them, and she nearly succeeded in spoiling their pleasure in the new Tummys' campaign, which they had been eagerly looking forward to for several days.

Fred knew the kids were going to like it. He had a brand-new roll of Tummys in his pocket, all ready to receive it. It was nicely timed just as Fred was finishing his pineapple came a loud and unmistakable belch. The children looked startled and then burst into laughter. Mavis looked shocked, and then joined the laughter as a man's voice said, "Embarrassing, isn't it? Supposing that had been you!

But what's worse is the distress of suppressing stomach gases. Why risk either the embarrassment or the discomfort? Take a Tummy after each meal and avoid the risk of [the belch was repeated, sending the children into fresh gales of laughter]. Yes, folks, be sure it doesn't happen to YOU."

Fred handed Tummys to all of them amidst exclamations from the children, "Gee, Daddy, that's the best yet," and "I can't wait for tomorrow night to hear it again!" Mavis thought it was "very good, very effective." Grandmother, however, took her Tummy tablet, dropped it on the floor, and ground it to powder with her foot. Fred and Mavis exchanged despairing glances.
That evening the children were allowed to sit up late so they could talk to their great-grandmother after the MV went off at eleven.

They had been told she'd just returned from a "trip," and when they asked her about it now she made up stories of faraway places where she'd been, where there wasn't any MV. Then she went on, while they grew bored, to tell them stories of her girlhood, before MV was invented, long before, as she said, "that fatal day when the Supreme Court opened the door to MV by deciding that defenseless passengers on buses had to listen to commercials whether they wanted to or not."

"But didn't they like to hear the commercials?" Billy asked.
Fred smiled to himself. Sound kid. Sound as a dollar.

Grandmother could talk herself cross-eyed but Billy wouldn't fall for that stuff. "No," Grandmother said, and she seemed very sad, "they didn't like them." She made a visible effort to pull herself together. "You know, Fred, the liquor business is missing a big opportunity. Why, if there were a bottle of Old Overholt here right now, saying, 'Drink me, drink me,' I'd do it!"

Fred took the hint and mixed three nightcaps.
"As a matter of fact," Mavis said, looking proudly at her husband, "Fred can claim a lot of the credit for that. All those liquor companies begged and pleaded with him for time, offered piles of money and everything, but Fred didn't think it would be a good influence in the home, having bottles around telling you to drink them, and I think he's right. He turned down a whole lot of money!"

"That was indeed splendid of Fred. I congratulate him." Grandmother drank her drink thirstily and looked at her watch. "We'd all better get to bed. You look tired, Mavis, and one must, I assume, especially in this household, be up with the MV in the morning."
"Oh, yes, we usually are, and tomorrow," Mavis said excitedly, "Fred has a wonderful surprise for us. Some big new account he's gotten and he won't tell us what it is, but it's going to start tomorrow."

Next morning as the Bascoms and Grandmother were sitting down to breakfast there was a loud knock at the door.
"That's it!" shouted Fred. "Come on, everybody!"
They all ran to the door and Fred threw it open. Nobody was there, but a copy of the New York Times was lying on the doorstep, saying,
"Good morning, this is your New York Times!

Wouldn't you like to have me delivered to your door every morning? Think of the added convenience, the added . . . " Mavis pulled Fred out onto the lawn where he could hear her. "Fred! she cried, "the New York Times-you sold the New York Times! However did you do it?"