I ran into this Tab commercial from the very early 1970s. It shows a businessman dreaming of his slender young wife, who is then shown running around in a garden with her little girl, both of them exuding little-girl prettiness. The scene is accompanied by a twinkly harp and a high, sweet female voice trilling delicately about how all-encompassingly important it is for you to be a "Mindsticker" in the mind of your man.
"Don't you want to have a good shape? He wants you with a good shape," she coos reprovingly.
I suppose the message hasn't changed much over the years: we're still urged to be sticks. There's just something about the directness of the statement that I find so interesting. You have to be a Mindsticker or your husband will find someone who is.
Hmm. Maybe we've made some progress after all, eh?
I was actually very excited to find Tab in Atlanta. I've never liked sugary pop (I love sugary everything else, but sugary pop makes my teeth feel funny), so when I was a child on summer vacation in the States, I always looked for Fresca - and Tab. In Atlanta, I happily sipped the saccharine stuff out of the signature pink can and for a moment it was the 1970s again! (But was I a Mindsticker? Who cares?)
