More with the creepy.

So, it turns out I was wrong. The creepiest commercial I've seen in a while was not, in fact, the Burger King possibly-exposing-kids-to-naked-Dad commercial. It is, instead, an ad I hadn't been thinking about at the time; it is a spot for a "collectible coin". This coin "commemorates" the World Trade Center by selling people its image on a small, circular piece of metal. There is a silver inlay of the towers, set against a gold coin. The inlay can separate from the coin and stand up on it, like a little display of what once was.

Memorials are nice. I don't think anyone is going to forget about 9/11 anytime soon, but if you need that little reminder in your home, staring at you every freaking day, good for you. That's not my objection. What bothers me is that the coin is advertised as being struck from metal scavenged from the vaults beneath the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. (Okay, maybe not in those words.) It seems we have a few words for people who grab precious metals from sites of horrible tragedy: vultures, graverobbers, Thenadiers, etc. Seriously, think about it. How did they get the metal for those coins? Did they purchase it, or go down there themselves, pickaxes and shovels packed next to their unbridled greed? Ultimately, it doesn't much matter; somebody had to do the deed, whether as an employee of this coin company or an independent contractor.

Maybe I'm overreacting; maybe it's not such a horrible thing. I mean, it's a bunch of subterranean gold and silver, just sitting there and of no use to anyone. It belonged to somebody on September 10, 2001; presumably, that party (or parties) held onto that ownership the following day, and had a right to transfer it how they liked. And if it was bound to be sold, there are certainly worse things to do with it than making a few thousand reminders of how things used to be. Maybe everything is on the up and up. But whenever that commercial comes on, I still feel a little dirtier for being an American.