I'm Out of Tissues. Use Your Sleeve.

 I don't watch football. Because my father worked 6 days a week and loved his football, he would plant his ass in front of the television on Sunday and watch game after game during the season. I was 18 years old before I realized that football games weren't 5 hours long and didn't require an eight-course meal of grilled meats. I found football to be an absolute bore and grew to despise the sound of televised football games. The roar of the crowd, the sound of the whistles, the inevitable armchair coaching, cussing and cheering from my father. . .I loathed it all. He and my brothers would jump and yell at the screen and I would sit, looking at them with narrowed eyes, thinking "You look sooooo stupid. So stupid. They can't hear you, stupid stupid-heads."  The sound of games on television still trigger an annoyance in me that I can hardly contain. In my mind, it's the soundtrack to a lot of wasted time.

Of course, I know everyone doesn't feel that way. My brother has a totally different take on that sound. He loves it. Sporting events are one of the places where he and my father bond. At call of the coin toss, all sins are forgiven and life is good. For me. . .not so much. 

Anyway, because I don't watch football, I really don't care about the end-all-be-all of football existence: THE SUPERBOWL! But as I have just so pleasantly discovered, I'm missing out on some rather creative television: THE COMMERCIALS. 

Normally, I would've missed many of these often funny, usually expensive commercials. Ten years ago if you missed it, you missed it. Thankfully, there is now YouTube!

There is one commercial, in particular, that I was recently made aware of, that really chaps my ass. Actually, at first, I thought it was kind of funny. But then. . .I didn't think it was funny. I mean, I got a chuckle. But then I got annoyed. (Danger! Danger!)

It's this Dodge "Man's Last Stand" commercial.

I watched it. 

I watched it again.

I watched it one more time before emitting an electronic pulse to all of my minions, creatures gnarly and dark, sending all of them forth to eviscerate the jack-ass ad-men who created this joke of a commercial. I'm saving the worst of the beasties for the alleged "men" who actually IDENTIFY with it.

"I will get up and walk the dog. . ."
(Uhh. . because it's probably your friggin dog. Or at least the dog you SWORE you'd take care of. . . )

"I will eat fruit for breakfast. . ."
(To offset the fact that you used six beers to wash down the three pounds of ground beef and eight strips of bacon smooshed between two buns soaked in mayonnaise you ate the night before.)

"I will shave. . ."
(So you don’t look like Billy Bob Thornton or Captain flippin Cave Man.)

"I will clean out the sink after I shave. . ."
(Because that's something that one does when they don't live in the back of their van. You know, stuff you automatically do. . .like wiping your ass after you do a twosie.)

"I will be at work at 8:00 a.m. . . ."
(Because your boss said if you were late again, you'd get canned.)

"I will say yes when you want me to say yes. . ."
(Then you are a stupid robot and now all the love I had for you has died.)

"And because I do this. . .I will drive the car I want to drive. . ."
(Hey, if driving a car that looks like a hearse made-it with a Ford Mustang will solve all of THIS (pointing to the above) then drive it, baby. Drive. Kiss it. Lick it. Stick your oh-la-la in the tail pipe and tell it you'll call it in the morning. Please. By all means. Whatever it takes to get you through the day, buddy. Because, you know, a $33,000.00 car is so much cheaper than the therapy you so obviously need. . .)

It's a commercial. Why am I so pissy about it? 

Watching. . .again. . .(trying to figure this out) I can't help but think "HEY, BABY. You're the ones who wanted to "marry someone like your mommy," yet when your woman tells you it's time to get up for daycare.  .  .I mean work; to clean up your pet's shit off the carpet; to engage in hygienic practices, then she's somehow browbeaten you into this monotone-voiced, whipped little cry baby whose only escape is his (gag) CAR? Wah-f**kity-wah. Boo-freakin-hoo. Sob. Sob. Sob. Poor Baby! Ohhhhhhhhh pobrecito! Awwww! Pauvre bebe! Ack! Ack! PUT ON YOUR BIG BOY PANTS!"

In case you can't tell, I am having a meltdown of Christian Bale proportions. "Oh! Goood for youuuuuuuuuuuu!"

Hmmm. (Watching again.) Could I be (gasp) sexist? (Probably.)

I sent it to my husband, thinking I was over-reacting. I was looking to him for some balance. Even HE laughed and said it was a little pathetic. Funny, but pathetic. He said that if is what men have been reduced to, he, for once, was glad he was born in the 50's.

I'm coming down really hard on the men depicted in the commercial. I know. And I know that all men aren't like the lifeless blobs depicted in the commercial. My current husband never asked me "Why don't you make me lunch for work?" (A question I was asked in another time and another place, so long ago); he never cries to me "You didn't wake me up on time!" Why? BECAUSE HE IS A MAN. Not a little boy. Not someone who married me to replace his mother; but a real, breathing, living man who gets up, shaves, cleans up after himself all on his own without any prompting from the little woman. Not a whining little boy whose car is an extension of some pent-up aggression he uses to ease the resentment of getting bossed around. Why? Because he doesn’t get bossed around. And he doesn't view me as an adversary . . . some freaky apparition who has appeared in his life and suck all of the fun of living out of it. He views me as a member of his team. I am "one of the guys" with a hot bod and the occasional wherewithal to remind him that the dog is due for its shots.

I'm coming down really hard on the men depicted in the commercial. I know. I'm thinking that it's because the men who created this kinda funny/kinda not commercial seem to think that women are these bossy, finger-wagging shrews. I'm thinking that it's because they're acting as if women don't suffer for the wants and needs of men.

Ack. I shouldn't watch t.v. After all, it's just a commercial. And I suppose that there must be a grain of truth to this. I suppose that there are men who feel this way, or else the commercial wouldn't have been so successful; it wouldn't have "spoken" to so many people.

I'm coming down really hard on the men depicted in the commercial. I know. So, in fairness to all the men of the world who feel badgered, oppressed and despondent over the fact that your woman is bossing you around, I offer you the video below. 

 I think it speaks for itself.

And I think I would like to give a hearty Jersey Shore fist-pump to whomever put the time into making it. In the scant minutes of this video, they've said more than I could say in the hundreds of words spasmodically typed out in this blog. . .ENJOY! xoxo

P.S. One word of warning: do your best to ignore the comments underneath the videos. Eeek! It makes me weep for the future.