Marketing specialists believe it takes seven “touches” or interactions with ads to convert someone to buy a product. Mileage may vary based on the size of one’s wallet and an individual’s willpower.
If something’s up my alley (office supplies, writing courses, etc.), they can hook me in just two. For cars, cookware, or cleaning products, I go deaf and blind and the best salesperson on the planet couldn’t get me to bite because I’m not their target market. For something the Hubs is interested in, it’s more like twenty touches — and even then he tries to find a better deal.
We were waiting for our plane to Dallas, and I was scrolling Facebook. An ad popped up I’d seen previously, and since I’d paused for a flash of a microsecond on it more than once, Facebook has decided to show it to me repeatedly.
I showed him the “Learn To Draw in 21 Days” course.
“You think I could learn to draw in 21 days?” (FYI: I draw about as well as I cook. The only difference is the lack of smoke.)
“They say it like it’s foolproof,” he replied.
“So?”
“They said The Navage was foolproof, too, but I can’t figure it out.” I detected an undercurrent of bitterness.
We broke eye contact with my phone and looked at each other.
I tried not to laugh. “Well…”
“Shut up,” he said.
“That’s gonna be a blog someday.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
And so, on behalf of the Hubs, and with his permission, I present you with a public service announcement regarding the Navage.
It started at Target, an authorized retailer for this product. Only ever having listened to my man complain about sinus issues for months and blabbering on about this device, I’d not researched it myself. I was slightly sticker-shocked, but in rare form, he tossed it in the cart without hesitation.
“Wow.” I was surprised at his assertiveness.
“It’s time to do something. They say it really works.” He was truly excited to get some relief from his issues. Later I put it together that there had been a commercial running on the radio for this thing on his way to and from work for months. Months, I tell you. He was primed to purchase after a mere 3,290 touches. (There’s a moral here about never giving up, even if you’re on the 3,289th try, but that’s not the point of this blog.)
I picked it out of the cart and read the back of the box. My toes curled. “Look. You’re gonna have to do this on your own. I can’t even with this.”
“There’s instructions and videos. It’ll be fine.” He really had been thinking about this for quite some time.
Over the years, I have had the occasion to care for a plethora of health issues. I can do staples, stitches, burns, injections, and post-surgical drains. I’ll hold an ice pack on your deformed bones, put pressure on a bloody geyser, and hold your hair while you puke. But there are two things I can’t even with: Teeth in any aged body (the Hubs helped our kids pull their teeth) and grown-up snot (kid snot, okay, whatever. Adult snot? I mean…).
The instructions and picture on the back of that box sidelined any chance of my involvement before we even got the thing out of Target.
This thing—you stick these cushioned prongs into your nostrils. One prong shoots saltwater into your nostril, and the other sucks the water and whatever else is up there out of your sinus tract and dumps it in a basin. Gag me now.
“I mean it. You’re on your own.”
That evening, I’d found a nice spot on the couch complete with a fuzzy blanket, a cat. Downtime.
Then I hear a crash.
A scuffle.
Stella, all curled up on my stomach, raised her head and laid her ears back. The other two cats were in the living room with me, so it wasn’t a feline fight breaking out.
Then, from over the back of the couch, Hubs appears. Flustered doesn’t begin to describe it.
“I can’t figure it out.”
“Oh, no. I already—”
“But it’s not working. It was supposed to be easy.” Foolproof, remember?
Stella pole-vaults from my ribcage. There goes my downtime. Hubs was so looking forward to relief, I supposed the best I could do was see if I could help with the device side of things. Maybe it was a switch to flip or something. But just the device—not the biological side of things.
I followed him to the bathroom. The sink, the floor, and, yes, two walls, were dripping. Dripping. Had the Navage required some sort of red-tinted solution instead of simple saline, it would’ve looked like a massacre. I look more closely at Hubs. His shirt was soaked.
The instructions were so wet they were nearly unreadable. There were saline pods and bits of parts everywhere.
He tried to show me how he thought it should work and nearly drowned himself right in front of me. Right in front of me! In a mere 30 cc of water.
I gagged. He gagged and hacked. More water on the floor. The walls. Everywhere.
I tried to read the instructions, but one of the only parts still legible was the encouragement that no one had ever drowned using this machine.
Well… they haven’t met us, now, have they?
Does the Paul household recommend the Navage? What do you think? After dozens of YouTube videos, he still manages to drown himself and the bathroom.
Your mileage and willpower to figure things out will probably take you further than ours. The thing has over 50,000 positive reviews on Amazon. Somewhere, more than a few someones have figured out how to not drown themselves and are walking around snot-free and fancy free.
Back at the airport: “I had to have been doing something wrong.”
“Ya think?” The device is in the top of our closet, in pieces, where there’s a good chance it will stay until next allergy season when he’ll give it another good-hearted try.
I’ll stay on the couch with the cats where it’s safe and dry.
In the meantime, the Hubs will stick to Kleenex, and I’ll stick to office supply and writing course ads.
I do know I have a better chance at learning how to draw in the next 21 days than of either of us tackling the Navage.
