Commercials

Some people can hula-hoop, some unicycle, others can touch their noses with their tongues. I can't do any of those things, but I'm very good with voices and faces--particularly with actors on commercials. I can name the voice-over in three words or less --and not just James Earl Jones. And faces, well, remembering faces can ruin a commercial for me.

I know they're actors, but it takes away from the credibility of the testimonial if the woman who takes her kid to McDonalds is the same woman who can't find her car in the garage, who approaches Jamie Lee Curtis with "Activia lady?". Just last year she was hanging out with a couple of male co-workers doing the single 20-something fast food lunch in the park.

And then there's the woman who has a computer issue in one ad, and is making an egg for her son the chef in another. Or the guy on meds who is seeking financial advice. And the corporate couple turned inn-keepers who both play other roles. One of the worst for me is the woman who knocks her knuckles on a granite counter top with a large diamond on that hand (calling the counter 'the rock that really counts') who also advertises for a local college or technical school of some sort. Suddenly Miss Wealthy and Married is really a college student.

Are you seeing my point?

Good for them that they're getting lots of roles, but I'm remembering their faces and work, and not necessarily the product. My sister Liz says its ridiculous that it bothers me. But it's my talent. Or my sickness. (One of them, anyway.) And I can't turn it off.

Thank goodness I fell in love with the man who dresses like the sun for Jimmy Dean sausages before he did the ad for building a website. I love those ads! I'm grateful that I got to enjoy the latest of those ads, which is my favorite, where he's home cooking breakfast and singing his conversation about breakfast as if he's a rock star--one daughter (the younger of the two) rocking out with him, the other (the teenager) rolling her eyes. It made me laugh every time.

But now he is also a man trying to build a website with his wife. I believed him more when he was just the sausage sun.