And another stupid ad

Some time ago I posted about a particular pregnancy test that seemed to me completely inappropriate. I don't think pregnancy tests themselves are inappropriate--in fact, until finishing menopause (hooray!) I found them pretty handy. But this same company now has an ad, narrated inexplicably by a man (why does he get more credibility than a woman who would be the expert and marketing target?) which claims, "One out of four women can misread a pregnancy test."

First, stop the fear mongering. Of course they don't. They're terrified of the answer either way, so 100% of them are certainly jittery but not too dumb to figure out the result. You'd be surprised how that hightened awareness can focus one's mind on making sure she understands the results of a pregnancy test.

Second, hell's bells. What kind of idiotic spawn are we turning out if one quarter of women are so stupid that they can't read a plus sign for positive or a minus sign as a negative? Duh? They have to have whole words to explain it to them? If they can't read a single sign, how can they read a whole word?

If this claim is true--and I don't think it is--I suspect rampant illiterate texting and IMing, combined with ignoring reading and any other sort of homework, may be a contributor.

Next they'll come up with a test that talks to you after you pee on it ("Yes, you are pregnant!" "No, you are not pregnant!"), because the manufacturers assume that the women are so challenged they can't read at all.