You know how much I hate fine print. It’s right up there with insurance companies, banks, ads for prescription drugs, car sales and lease restrictions, cable TV and cell phone service disclaimers, and lawyers. Most of those I can all sort of let go. If somebody wants to really believe he or she can save $500 switching insurance, will actually pay only $49 for phone service, or can qualify for that $99 lease that’s on them for taking tooth fairy believability to life. Well, caveat emptor and all that. Except for lawyers. I still haven’t figured out if they actually serve any sort of redeeming purpose. But that’s a post for a different time. This post is all about a new line of fine print I saw on an ad and I could have died when I saw it. Actually I could have wished death on the person who came up with it and the other ones who willingly went along with it.

I had the television on the other afternoon. It’s annoying as hell to watch television during the afternoon but not because of the programming, because of the ads. All three of them. No matter what the show or what the channel, if it’s between 11am and 4pm you will get a steady diet of commercials touting credit repair, Medicare supplement insurances, and denture adhesives.  And every now and then something completely different.

The something different I saw was an ad for a hospital. Not a donation request asking for $19 a month but an ad designed to make you want to go to a particular hospital.  Not a local hospital for your general hospital needs. This was an ad for a national specialty hospital where cancer is all they treat. There were patients and patients’ families, doctors, and professional voice-over actors all promoting their brand of care resulting in their kind of success. As a cancer survivor and a health care professional I took interest in that ad for as much as I can take interest in any ad between 11am and 4pm. But my interest waned when they got to the end and those teeny words crawled across the bottom on the screen. “You should not expect a similar outcome.”

Beneath the large, bold list of their few locations across the country, their phone number and web address, and the insurance plans they accept, after spending 60 seconds telling you how they understand, how much they care, and how they are different, they slipped in at the bottom of the screen at the end of the ad, in a print sized to make an optometrist cringe, “You should not expect a similar outcome.” You should not expect the same result as the patient whose testimonial was presented during the ad. You should not expect to be relieved of your pain and suffering, you should not expect to be returned to your family and loved ones, you should not expect to return to a fulfilling life, you should not expect to be happy and upbeat when your treatment is complete. But please, be sure to break your neck to set off across the country to not get what the ad encourages you to believe in.

Can you imagine if every ad ended with “you should not expect a similar outcome?” Would you ever spend money again on reducing the chance of cavities, removing unsightly grass stains, or eliminating underwear creep? What do you think would happen to you when you pay your rent or mortgage, your utilities and credit cards, and you include the note “don’t expect this every month” with each check?

You know what I think? I think it’s time to forget buyer beware and it’s time for seller be truthful. Quid a conceptu!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?