Stupid commercials and worse things

I hate stupid commercials. Not humorous commercials, mind, you know the ones that are intended to be funny or to make you smile. Those are cool; we need more reasons to smile and some of them are quite clever.

No, I just hate the stupid ones. The ones that are meant to be taken seriously, like all those commercials advertising products that will help you crack an egg better or help you hold the screwdriver correctly -- things the human animal have been doing for centuries, if not millennia, quite well without the help of some gadget that sells for $19.99 (but wait there's more!). The purveyors of all this crap find the most inept folks available to testify to the average person's need for these devices: the grown woman who can't use a strainer to pour the water off the pasta without dropping the entire pot in the sink, or the guy who can't use a regular butter knife to slice through a brick, cause, you know, we all must do that at some point...

Here lately one stupid commercial has gotten my teeth on edge. Its a simple commercial for a web-based service that provides postage over the internet. It sounds like a grand idea and I've no real issue with the commercial itself -- despite it being way louder than the program it accompanies, but all commercials are like that these days. That's why God created the mute button. No, the one fault I find is in the very first part of the commercial where they have some yahoo saying "There's nothing worse than going to the post office."

Sounds innocuous enough, I suppose, and honestly, who among us love the idea of going to the post office except for the very young who find pleasure in big pictures of bright-colored stamps their mothers never buy, but the commercial just grates on my nerves. I mean, seriously, the guy is 40 if he's a day and the worse thing he's ever had to endure is going to the post office? Don't get me wrong, I've been to the post office at least a half dozen times and, yes, it sucks. But what kind of charmed, righteously blessed life do you have that you can say that standing in the queue at the post office is the worst event you can imagine?

I mean, at 40-something, surely this guy's been to at least one funeral. Okay, okay, so I had a grandfather who enjoyed going to funerals and read the obits every morning just to plan his day -- if I'm lyin', I'm dyin', no exaggeration -- but I understand that's an old person thing sometimes, especially when you live in a small town like Waco and kicks are hard to come by, so we'll leave him out of this, thank you.

My point is, I can think of worse things (in no particular order):

• hearing the Simpsons might be cancelled. (DOH!)
• your computer crashing, and actual smoke wafting out the back vent.
• being told your sister's health has deteriorated to end-stage disease and she needs to be on oxygen 24-hours-a-day. And she's barely 10 years old.
• having five minutes to pack fifteen years of your life from your desk because the company you hoped to retire from just declared bankruptcy and the creditors are there to lock the doors.
• finding out your fiance has a secret life and you're 36 and too tired to care anymore.
• finding your dad semi-conscious on the floor with a gash bleeding from his forehead. And he has no memory of how he got there.
• being there for your friend who drives to the hospital every day, hoping that this time she'll be allowed to at least touch her premature baby before they close the unit for the night.
• your much younger co-worker progressively dumping more and more of her work on your desk because she has an in with the boss and she knows you're 50 and desperately need your job and will probably be too scared to say anything.
• watching the towers burn. And the pentagon. And the wreckage of flight 93.
• watching your parents get older. Watching your big brother get older.
• the vet calling to tell you that your dog -- the one that had gotten you through the worst crap of your life so far -- didn't make it. And its your birthday.
• being told your friend has cancer.
• being told your mother has cancer.
• standing at your baby sister's hospital bed, watching her die.
• funerals.

But hey, that's just my life, YMMV and may be far, far worse, God help you. But it kinda puts going to the post office back in perspective, huh? All those tough things in your life you think you'll never get through? You know you've been through worse. And if not, you probably will some day. Just don't wimp out and, for pity's sake, don't whine about it. You don't want to be one of those annoying people you despise for being... well, whiny.

And just for kicks don't be afraid to use the mute button on your TV remote, especially during commercials. Or better yet, use the off button a little more often.

You can thank me later.