Commercial Dining

Bonnie Garety

Would you like a dollop of mucus with your mashed potatoes? Just watch the fruitful phlegm being offered in the inescapable commercial touted by the green blobman as he cavorts on your screen during the dinner hour while you are trying to enjoy a favorite program along with your food. Mr. Mucus is hard to ignore but let’s hope for better ads.

No such luck. While we are trying to enjoy our meal, along comes the promotion for stool softeners. Now, let’s pretend that this product is advertising a cushion for a hard chair. We can take hope when the next ad features a gasket. Good. We’d rather see a new car or even an old one, but this gasket is a device to fasten dentures to the gums. The screen is filled by a gaping pink mouth full of teeth. We never see the gasket but hope it goes away soon. Maybe it got swallowed like we’re trying to do with our food. Back to our favorite program, but just for a short spell. A frantic woman is now running from restroom to restroom chanting “gotta go...gotta go.” Maybe her gasket is out of order. We hope she gets locked in the bathroom before the next commercial , dealing with laxatives, graces our screen.

At last, as we finish our dessert, the commercials are over but, sadly, so is our program. At least we have been spared the Viagra ads. The letter ‘V’ always makes me think of Winston Churchill holding his fingers up in a jubilant “V”. Thank goodness he was signifying victory. After noticing the side effects from these drugs printed in nano-print or run through by an announcer who is on a fast track, we can’t really tell if anything bad is involved. For this reason, I have decided to launch a new pharmaceutical company featuring overcoming side effects. My new pill will be called “BSE” (Banish Side Effects) and will promise to cure those annoying unexpected illness such as Bubonic Plague, nausea, ingrown toenails, athlete’s foot and halitosis. Further information as to the effectiveness of the BSE pill can be found on the side panel of the bottle. A magnifying glass is recommended. Otherwise, just ask your doctor.

Bon apetit!