8/24/17

Boltaflex - One word. Plastics.

Cast your mind back into the mists of time - way back before the time when vinyl was shorthand for "we like the sweaty thighs, but we didn't want to pay for leather". "Plastics" might have meant "advanced and modern tech-nology". Enter, Boltaflex vinyl and/or polyurethane-covered furniture.

Of course, when you think of vinyl seats, you might only think of cracked and peeling car seats that reveal the strange fabric substrate underneath. However, maybe the crazy-hot-to-crazy-cold life of an automotive interior is too tall an order for a plastic that's expected to remain flexible for all eternity? I can promise you, every bus that I ever rode to school always had the one seat that was peeling, that the last kid to get on the bus had no choice but to sit on. It sucked to be Last on the Bus Kid.

Loads of restaurant seats are still vinyl... if you're lucky. A few McDonaldses have just given up and installed hard, molded plastic bench seats, probably made from recycled playground slides. Their point of view can be appreciated. "Keep the customer uncomfortable, so they'll eat their mass-produced slop and immediately fuck off." Smart. Customer rotation means the table is free to accept the asses of the next group of humans that want to spend as little as possible on bulk meal items.



Can you still get a car with vinyl seats? Has the name of vinyl been so besmirched that no one wants them in their car, opting for fabric, if leather is too rich for their blood? When I was a kid, I wanted one of those baseball-type jackets with the wool torso and the leather sleeves, all in some kind of bright, contrasting colors. But mom always said "no way", her reasoning being that the leather sleeves crack, peel, and fall apart in short order. Now, in the fullness of adulthood, I know that this thinking was backwards. It's the jackets with the fake vinyl sleeves that fall apart. Leather just gets better with age. All it needs is a semiannual shmear of conditioner.

I've had a car with leather seats, and taking care of them is no big deal. Just grab a sponge or something and rub any of a thousand commercially available leather goos into them. This chore is made even more enjoyable if you find a leather goo whose smell you enjoy. My goo of choice is Meguiars Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner/Conditioner. All closed up inside the car, the sun will just off-gas all that delightful chemical miasma for you to enjoy on your next journey. I'm sure my Meguiars Rich Gold Leather Rich Goo has, over the years, knocked more than a few letter grades off my I.Q., but I'm not bothered. Brain me good fine feel. Nose like eat leather goo.

Anyway, the two delighted ladies in this ad? You know, the ones that love the sweaty thighs but don't want to pay for leather? It might be handy to borrow their campy astonishment for whatever image you cook up in your computer. Family cookout flyer? Better with excited sweaty-thigh ladies, for sure. Get ready to right-click these two dames onto you hard drive in three, two, one, RIGHTCLICK NOW! You're welcome.



2 comments:

Ypek said...

Very educational. Now I want to know more about SEALTUFT. Sealtuft. Which is quilted apparently. By the two overenthousiastic ladies no doubt. SEALTUFT also could be prog-rock band from Sweden.

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

Aren't all current prog rock bands from Sweden? One more reason the Swedes are better than us!

Thanks for reading, Ypek! And thanks for the post-card!

[-Mgmt.]

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