Plastic Surgery
As part of a mailing list that I recently signed up to, I get countless e-mails every day about various flotsam and jetsam that the people in my network have for sale or coupons and special offers they wish to pass on to network members. From living room rugs and doll strollers to barbecue charcoal and... silkworm eggs (!?!), it's intriguing to see what kinds of things people uncover in their seasonal garage clear-outs. I sometimes get 30 or 40 e-mails a day from people in my network, which is a nuisance at times, but now I'm hooked at the quirky insight into people's lives that this mailing list offers.
The coupon and special offer e-mails are sometimes useful, sometimes downright weird, to my eyes at least. This latest one is an example:
"Thinking of having a breast augmentation?"
"Dr [Anonymous] is offering a summer special on breast augmentation for any [my network] members! Just tell him that [network member] told you about the deal and then you are eligible for the discount. I have had a breast augmentation procedure carried out by Dr [Anonymous] already along with a number of other procedures and can highly recommend him. He offers free consultations all year round but the deal is available for the summer months only."
"Dr [Anonymous] is offering a summer special on breast augmentation for any [my network] members! Just tell him that [network member] told you about the deal and then you are eligible for the discount. I have had a breast augmentation procedure carried out by Dr [Anonymous] already along with a number of other procedures and can highly recommend him. He offers free consultations all year round but the deal is available for the summer months only."
Plastic surgery being offered on summer special? A surgeon being recommended like you would recommend a dentist or a hairstylist? Really? Is this normal??
What struck me as interesting too, apart from the sheer weirdness of someone doing a summer special on boob jobs, is how honest the poster was about her own plastic surgery procedures. She just mentioned it in passing as if she were talking about some crowns her dentist had done for her. No big deal, just major surgery for the purposes of pure vanity!
This is part of the wider Interesting Thing for me that is medical procedures on demand and by choice, a unique feature of the US medical system. We have private healthcare where I'm from but it is limited in choice due to regulations and lack of doctors. I've also lived in the UK, where the totalitarian regime known as the NHS determines how you live and die (seriously: I am grateful to the NHS for the healthcare offered to me while I lived there, but the lack of choice was sometimes frustrating). The US healthcare system is entirely different. It's also extremely complicated so I'll leave that for a future post.
This idea of surgery on demand, on special offer for summer like camping gear at WalMart, is certainly very odd though. It makes me wonder just how common plastic surgery has become here, in "California 2000", the land of all of our futures. Is the idea of plastic surgery on demand for a summer special offer disturbing? Slightly. People should be free to do as they wish with their own bodies but surgery is still a serious business, not something to be undertaken or referred to lightly.
I don't quite know what to make of this attitude to plastic surgery. It's certainly interesting anyway so that makes this particular snippet a good candidate for my first in a many-part series: 'Interesting Things'.
What struck me as interesting too, apart from the sheer weirdness of someone doing a summer special on boob jobs, is how honest the poster was about her own plastic surgery procedures. She just mentioned it in passing as if she were talking about some crowns her dentist had done for her. No big deal, just major surgery for the purposes of pure vanity!
This is part of the wider Interesting Thing for me that is medical procedures on demand and by choice, a unique feature of the US medical system. We have private healthcare where I'm from but it is limited in choice due to regulations and lack of doctors. I've also lived in the UK, where the totalitarian regime known as the NHS determines how you live and die (seriously: I am grateful to the NHS for the healthcare offered to me while I lived there, but the lack of choice was sometimes frustrating). The US healthcare system is entirely different. It's also extremely complicated so I'll leave that for a future post.
This idea of surgery on demand, on special offer for summer like camping gear at WalMart, is certainly very odd though. It makes me wonder just how common plastic surgery has become here, in "California 2000", the land of all of our futures. Is the idea of plastic surgery on demand for a summer special offer disturbing? Slightly. People should be free to do as they wish with their own bodies but surgery is still a serious business, not something to be undertaken or referred to lightly.
I don't quite know what to make of this attitude to plastic surgery. It's certainly interesting anyway so that makes this particular snippet a good candidate for my first in a many-part series: 'Interesting Things'.
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