Diamond

Diamonds are a Banker's Best Friend

DeBeer's runs these ads-- you've seen them. A lovely woman and a lovely man frolicking on a beach. The woman is lithe and lithsome, dancing... the man takes her hand and leads her up to the cottage. We understand this immediately. We know what he is going to give her. A diamond.

"How else can two month's salary last a life-time?"

So says DeBeer's.

"There's a sucker born every minute."

So says P.T. Barnum.

You've got this young couple. They are both just starting their careers. They have no money. They rent a small apartment. They drive a seven-year-old car that needs a lot of fixin'. They borrowed from mom and dad to buy a fridge and a stove and still do their laundry at the laundramat. They are thinking of having a baby. They decide to get married. Yeah, that's the order it happens in nowadays. So some stranger in a very slick suit, looking oh-so-much better off than they are, driving a leased Buick, wearing a Rolex watch, impeccably coiffured, as they say, comes up to them and says: "You should give me two months salary for a worthless piece of spackle." And the girl looks into her lover's eyes and becomes a little dewy and smiles and touches his hand and says, "Wow? You'd do that for me?"

Why doesn't he just throw himself in front of a car? It makes as much sense. I'll bet the hospital bill would also be about two months salary. And, really, she should be even more impressed-- that hurt!

I'd like to see those ads on tv. A couple frolicking on the road-- you only see their shadows. She goes up on her tippy toes to kiss him, then mischievously runs away across the road, while Vivaldi whines on the sound track. He runs after her. You see the shadow of a Mack Truck, and hear the screeching of brakes.

Then you see a shadow of a hospital bed, the leg up in the air, and she's holding his hand and bending down. "St. Michael's Hospital-- where else would two month's salary last a life-time?"

October 6, 1998