My guess is that everyone is secretly bored to tears. This is why advertising works. We buy things because we think that some of the glamour or excitement of the product’s marketing will infuse our dreary lives. Thus, every razor and toothbrush we use is as gleaming and aerodynamic as the space shuttle, and the automobiles we drive can transport us with ease to jagged mountaintops. Whether the Enterprise beams me up during my morning toilet or my boyfriend is captured by the yeti, I’ll be ready. (I just have to call in sick from work, board the dog, make sure the mortgage is paid and the floors are swept, put the mail on hold, make the bed, pack an overnight bag, and not forget to grab my vitamins, my glasses, my dental night guard, my prescriptions, and a change of underpants. Here I come to save the day, honey! Don't leave without me, Captain Kirk!)

I’m a designer, so good industrial design and clever advertising give me a quiet joy, but these days, there is desperation in the air. If a product can’t claim to be “New and Improved!” every six months, it might as well not exist. It will be bypassed on the shelves by the hordes of jaded zombies who need their next fix of excitement, and it will languish in consumer purgatory until some wiseguy comes up with a way of revitalizing the brand.

We don’t buy things because they’re actually new and improved. Who cares if our no-wax tile is two percent brighter, or if our electric toothbrushes have four speeds instead of three? We buy things because for one brief, sparkling moment, we have in our very own grocery bag a package depicting a shiny burst of color and too many exclamation points. The exhilaration lasts until we get home, throw the packaging away, and sink back into the routine tedium of our existence.