I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately. Mostly because I have no energy left at the end of the day to do anything else; sometimes even moving my fingers over a mouse pad is too exhausting to think about so even the Internet is something I get around to every third day or so. Last night I started dinner and had to bail out halfway through (only a nine-months-pregnant woman could legitimately require two nights to make a perfectly routine and simple dinner) so we heated up a frozen pizza instead. Unfortunately, however, I do not watch good TV. I watch crap. Not trashy crap, just a lot of HGTV and… well, actually, more HGTV. And I don’t know if you’ve ever watched HGTV for more than, oh, fifteen minutes, but if you HAVE, then you know they show the same ten commercials over and over and OVER again and of those ten commercials, five in particular make me want to pull my hair out and then do something really really heinous with it, like bake it into a pie and EAT IT or something. WHILE SCREAMING. (Lori feels the same way about the Nightly News. Which I don’t watch, because that’s when House Hunters is on, DUH.)
FOR EXAMPLE:
How is it possible that the Glade lady has ANY FRIENDS AT ALL, much less friends that show up to her home REPEATEDLY, only to look on in horror as she talks to baked goods/lies about buying cheap grocery store candles/wears COCKTAIL DRESSES AND PEARLS despite the fact that everyone else shows up at her house wearing slacks and turtleneck sweaters? The Glade lady is beyond ridiculous. (Granted, her hair is pretty awesome, I’ll give you that.)
That car commercial? Where the ladies’ shoes just start falling out of the sky? DOES THIS NOT STRESS ANYONE ELSE OUT? Personally, should this happen to me, I believe the first thing I would think about was whether those stiletto heels were doing any damage to my paint job. The lady in the commercial, however, just gets out in the middle of the street and starts tossing handfuls of shoes into the back of her car and I don’t know about you, but just because they’re FREE SHOES doesn’t mean you should just throw them into the car at random! MATCH UP SOME PAIRS, LADY, or else you’ll get home with 4,243 random shoes without mates and in MY opinion, shoes that fall from the sky are not really so much of a miracle if you CAN’T WEAR ANY OF THEM. (Do you think I’m supposed to assume they’re ALL HER SIZE, TOO? Well, I can’t. I’m practical like that.)
I really liked that electric broom commercial with the choreographed dancing, for some lame reason or another, but then Dirt Devil came out with something called the Kurv and something called the Kone and BOTH of these items have irritating commercials because the people demonstrating how the vacuums work are just a LITTLE TOO LIBERAL about what they decide to vacuum up. Like dry dog food. I don’t know about YOU, but if I spilled 30 pieces of kibble, I would SCOOP THEM BACK UP and deposit them in the dog’s food bowl. I don’t think Hambone gives a flying crap if his food touched the floor or not, do you? And while dog food isn’t the most expensive thing on the planet, it does bother me to waste it if it means I’m going to have to pick up one of those giant bags of it at Target that much sooner. Dude, those things are HEAVY and they take up the entire cart and the point size of the type on the bag lets everyone know that I’m the slacker who has an overweight pet who needs Weight Control Formula. There’s another Dirt Devil commercial where a woman is having her friends over, and they’re sitting at the dining room table, and one of them spills POPCORN, and the hostess gets out her hand vac and takes care of the mess. Um, I’m sorry, but what exactly does this say about the state of her dining room table? THAT IT IS TOO DIRTY TO EAT OFF OF. Insane, I tell you.
For some reason, I am more outraged about the Stanley Steemer commercial than Dave is, which I think is weird. It’s the one where the announcer says, “Kids, teens, pets, and husbands. Ever wonder how you can keep YOUR home clean?” And the dog is tracking in mud, and the kids are jumping on the furniture and the stupid, stereotyped Dad forgets to put the lid on the blender and sends some sort of smoothie beverage flying all over the kitchen, because all men ever do, after all, is MESS UP OUR HOUSES. And I think, DUDE, if someone made a commercial like that implying that WOMEN did something irritating, IT WOULD NEVER FLY. And yet, here’s this Stanley Steemer commercial, implying that all men do is mess stuff up. And it’s not that men DON’T mess stuff up (THEY MOST CERTAINLY DO), it’s just the idea that if someone made a commercial that painted women in an unflattering light, there would be boycotts and angry protests and demands for it to be taken off the air. Maybe men just don’t care enough. (MEN: I care FOR YOU! Down with Stanley Steemer! Also because they have this commercial, with the dog and the butt and what we are to assume are skid marks all over the carpet! Which: EW.)
Finally, I am still boycotting Charmin and all their Charmin-y products until they rid the universe of these ridiculous pooping bears. The latest commercial is the worst one yet, where one bear is bending over while playing football and another bear notices that there are bits of toilet paper stuck all over its butt. Now, I ask you, General Public, is this an issue you deal with on a regular basis? Is your toilet paper so cheap and awful that gobs of it are being left all over the cheeks of your butt and therefore require a tedious removal process? No, that’s right: I DIDN’T THINK SO. I can think of no one I hate more these days than the Charmin bears and the fact that they necessitate Extra Strong toilet paper. Because REGULAR toilet paper just WILL NOT DO.
Your turn! VENT AWAY.