A view of Bertha's logic

Premise number One: Hello! Old people take medicine. Just walk up and down the medications aisle in the grocery store. Just read Part D on a Medicare application.
Just watch an old-people show like Lawrence Welk on television and check out the commercials. No, you don't have to watch the whole show. You can click away from the commercials too if you want to, but just check me out. They advertise Boneva, and Centrum (sounds like “century”) and Celebrex on those shows for a reason which is: old people take medicine.

Premise number Two: Old people can't see. Just hang out at the optometrist's like I do, Just watch the old people shows like I do when I finally get my glasses adjusted. They advertise eye surgeries, eyedrops, and eyeglasses. Yes, the models for eyeglasses are all under the age of ten, but don't worry, they are just faking blindness. They also advertise Centrum for Eyes on those shows.

For some reason those advertisers actually think that their audience can see the commercials. Wait, that is why they also blast the sound on the same commercials—to make sure they can be heard if not seen. (For kids it is “seen and not heard.” For old people it is the other way around.)

Premise number Three: Old ladies cook. The generation of people to the left of center on a pedigree chart does not cook. They occasionally make cake from a box, and soup from a can. That is because their eyes are good enough that they can read the instructions. If it were as much trouble for them to read the labels as it is for old people, they wouldn't do it at all.

Conclusion: Don't you worry, those big companies know their markets well enough to sell their products. Notice that the company designer logo is plenty big enough for anyone to read. But once they get you to buy the medicine or the container of food, they are done with you. When it comes to figuring out how to use your Boneva or your cake mix, you are on your own because the industry standards for labels requires the use of microscopic type.

There must be some directive coming from the Consumer Protection Agency that reads like this: “Whenever designing labels that include instructions for use, drug facts, product ingredients, or nutrition information, do not waste container space by using a typeface that is larger than five points. The average consumer is comfortable with a font of that size or smaller, and lightface is sufficient.”

Okay, if they are selling Legos, or X-box games, maybe. Old people don't use those products anyway unless their grandkids force them to, in which case the kids have to be in the same room to show them how or they couldn't make them anyway.

Once one of my grandkids tried to make me play X-box. (He was in the same room.) Maybe it was War Games. I couldn't even maneuver my guy onto the battlefield. I ended up somewhere in a DMZ where there were high cliffs from which I fell and killed myself all by myself.

But if I walk into the kitchen with the intent of cooking something that requires me to read the instructions on the back of the product, all the grandkids will be gone. They have no desire to help me read the back of a bottle of aspirin either. They think that if I am careless enough to get sick that I will just have to take my medicine.

Well, I have news for the kids. It takes more brains to make cake when you can't read the recipe than it does to play X-box when you can see the controller buttons.

And I have advice for those who market medications and foods that have to be prepared. Discrimination against old people is punishable by law isn't it? I might have read that somewhere, but then the type was awfully small.