God – yours for only $58 pm!

So this morning, B was on our one working computer for a couple of hours, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs in front of the telly.
Flicking through the Freeview channels in search of something vaguely resembling intelligent entertainment (and failing), I found myself immersed in a hitherto unknown world. For instance, there are whole channels devoted to selling the sort of stuff you used to find in Innovations catalogues. I spent a full fifteen minutes gazing at one, as it told me all about a truly amazing exercise machine. This apparently does all the muscle-exercising stuff that could formerly only be done by running, walking, cycling, swimming etc., and all you do is step up and down on it, maybe twirling your hips and shoulders a bit as well. The message clearly conveyed was that spending just one hour a day on this machine (only £89.95, in 3 easy payments!), in the privacy of your own home, will provide you with all the exercise you need; you won’t ever have to stretch your muscles with things like digging the garden, or walking to work, or taking up cycling, or indeed doing anything else useful.

Then I found some religious channels – they weren’t all that different from the shopping channels and they all seemed to be selling the same product. I had a few minutes of fun flicking from one to another, producing a crazy audio-visual collage of Christian fundamentalist gobblydegook, armwaving, shouting, gospel singing, healing and deliverance. But then I alighted on a slightly different one: three Americans – permatanned, perfect teeth, expensive toupees – sitting in a studio. No arm-waving or singing or making people fall over with just a touch. Just sitting there discussing the Biblical significance of the number 58.
Intrigued, I kept watching. And eventually the real significance of that number became clear. Quite shortly, the woman produced a wad of testimonials from viewers and began reading them out. Every one of them testified how God had come into their lives and solved all their problems for them – unemployment, debt, sickness, problem children, problem spouses. And, strangely, every one of these people stated that they had felt God’s blessings shower on them right after they had pledged to pay $58 a month to this organisation! Amazing! Praise God!!
The three plasticated people in the studio never at any point said “Pay us $58 a month to have God solve all your problems”, but they kept reading out these testimonials and repeatedly mentioning the number 58 and emphasising the pledges. And, naturally, there was a phone number helpfully displayed at the bottom of the screen, so that people could ring in and ask these wonderful caring human beings how God could help them – not only a US number, but a UK 0800 number as well.
I wish there was a name for this type of scum – calling them bloodsuckers is an insult to all honest, hardworking leeches.