Avoid Disappointment and Future Regret

Sometimes when I'm home I let the TV run in the background as I lie down on the couch and do things like play Brick Breaker on my phone.

Today, in one such instance, a commercial for a $50 U.S. gold coin was aired. It claimed to be the highest-value U.S. coin ever produced, which I later found out was not quite true. What struck me was not the amazing opportunity that lay at my hands (which were clearly too occupied with brick-breaking), but the line that came on at the end of the ad, telling me that I should buy the coin so as to "avoid disappointment and future regret."

I figured one of two things must have just happened:

1) I imagined what I just heard.

2) "Avoid disappointment and future regret" is a (cumbersome) turn of phrase I had never heard before.

I did a little Google search to find out whether or not the phrase was used in regular discourse, or even irregular discourse. As it turns out, the only use of those five words strung together as such is in reference to that ad and others like it by the National Collector's Mint.

The National Collector's Mint, BTW, isn't a mint in the U.S., but a collection of mints in third world countries which also use "dollar" currencies. The NCM then prints up coins identical to historical U.S. mints and acts as if they're selling you a $50 coin for 50 U.S. dollars, when it's really 50 Liberian dollars, or about 78 cents American. It kind of makes me question why the play money I had as a kid, which must have been printed on loose leaf with a portrait of Alf written on the front, had to have the words "NOT LEGAL TENDER" written across it. Kind of killed the fun.

But I digress.

I really like that little sales push. I figure any sort of replica vintage coin scam company must have some sort of a sense of humor, and I like to think that "avoid disappointment and future regret" is at least a little bit ironic.

Merry Christmas and I hope no one in the world gets a fucking National Collector's Mint coin this year.