I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP®

This morning, the wife and I were watching a bit of television – the Sunday morning news shows, as usual. Anyway, as one would expect, one of those nearly perpetual commercials flashed upon the screen. This time it was for Life Alert; you know, the people who brought us that dear old lady who exclaimed those immortal words “Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!” You remember, the half-sister of the “Where’s the Beef” lady, or something like that.

But this morning I learned that I can no longer leave that much-repeated sentence unqualified. In fact I may indeed owe the Life Alert Corporation some fraction of a penny in royalties for using their well-worn slogan. All those years when I heard dear old Selma – or whatever her name was – cry out “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” she was in actuality proffering a subtle variant, one properly designated “Help, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up®”!

You see, this utterance has also joined the growing panoply of words and phrases to be registered in the service of corporate, commercial, or political practice. Who could ever forget Real® brand products? The wonderful brand that single-handedly rendered all of my purchases – needed or not – unreal and thus a part of a fantasy world which requires no justification [“I bought those blue shoes because they were there, and anyway, they weren’t Real® so it doesn’t really matter!”]

Though perhaps I needn’t worry too much. I must keep in mind – when it comes to fears of dear old Selma, broken hip and all, coming after me for her royalty check – the immeasurable Mental Anguish© and Pain and Suffering™ Fox News went through over Fair and Balanced™. [See Al Franken’s book Lies And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and the lawsuit Fox News attempted to bring regarding the title of the book.] Maybe the Life Alert Corporation’s grip on this essential human utterance is not quite so strong.

So, perhaps I can still make something real – though that is perhaps a dubious proposition now-a-days [You post-modernists! You blew it up! God… Damn you all to Hell!©] And, if I am lucky, some day I shall indeed be able to fall down somewhere and cry out to an unlistening and uncaring public “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” leaving off the unwanted “®” that I never can figure out quite how to fit into either polite conversation or my hastily constructed cries for help.