If you live in the New York area and you watch TV, you know this guy. I believe when I bring it up in conversation, I refer to him as the dude with the tracheotomy.



He is always on, either in his house cleaning out his hole with a Q-Tip (which I took a picture of as well, but it was really gross to post up here), or being a buzz kill at the community pool talking about how he can never swim again.

I don't smoke, so I can't say whether or not it is effective advertising. I know it freaked me out at first, but the more I watch these ads, the more entertaining they become. For example, you can still hear his accent. I didn't ever know that accents would transfer through a trach box. Like when he says "again," he still has a Hispanic accent. He says it "a-gain."

I would also like to know if they planned the ad at the pool, or they just crashed there one day to freak out kids. "OK, kids. For the next hour or so, there will be a man walking around with a hole in his neck. But don't be scared. Just keep splashing each other and play in the pool. But don't get any water in his neck hole, because he will die. Aaannnd, action!"

After reading more of that article, I guess he has appeared in other markets, so he has been around.

Oh, when we were talking about this at work fairly recently, a smoking co-worker said that her mom called her to tell her about the ads. She agreed that it was gross, but wasn't ready to quit smoking. She said, "It's only one guy."

So that gave me a brilliant idea. Get a ton of tracheotomy patients, like 100, and put them all in one ad. Don't just show them cleaning their holes or walking around pools, but make a choir out of them. Have them in a concert hall, Carnegie if it's available, then have them sing. How creepy would that be? No musical accompaniment. Just them singing a very cheery song, like "Wouldn't it be Nice?"

So imagine 100 patients with those boxes singing that song. Now imagine you are 7 years old when you see it. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong

You know it's gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through

Happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every kiss was neverending
Wouldn't it be nice

Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do
We could be married
And then we'd be happy

Wouldn't it be nice

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But lets talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice