I admire the actors and actresses in commercials. I frequently find them annoying, but I have to respect their ability to do and say deeply stupid things without betraying a hint of embarrassment or disdain. I don’t know about you, but I would have lasted through maybe three takes of “move over, bacon!” before jabbing myself in the eyeball with one of the forks on the set. I give these actors and actresses credit, because people just do not behave this way in real life. Real people do not snowboard over the edge of a cliff, shotgun a can of Mountain Dew, and whisper to their dates, “Let’s just be friends.” Real people do not use words like “sale-a-bration,” ever. If real people complained of thirst, and five seconds later an eight-foot-tall pitcher of Kool-Aid with legs burst into the room by knocking down a wall and yelling “YEEEAAAHH,” the real people would see his big red artificially-flavored ass in court. Well, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe, somewhere in this wide world, people greet thousands of dollars of property damage with enthusiasm if it means that they don’t actually have to get up and fix their powdered sugar drink for themselves, but you won’t see me jumping up to frolic happily around the trespasser, but rather lobbing chunks of debris while yelling, “Ever heard of a DOOR, you Red-Number-Five-addled FREAK?” A few other things you probably won’t see me – or anyone else – doing, ever, for any reason:

Standing up in my tiny anonymous cubicle with a sign that reads “I AM.” Pardon me while I totally don’t wave a piece of cardboard declaring my individuality as defined by a multinational corporation.

Squeezing one drop of dishwashing liquid into a crusty casserole dish and expecting that drop to clean not only the dish but all the other gnarly plates and flatware in the sink.

Poking a twerp in a chef’s toque and neckerchief in the stomach, and smiling fondly when he says, “Hee heeeee!” I despise the Pillsbury Doughboy, and if he happened to stroll across my countertop and dispense baking advice, I would flatten the pasty little runt with a rolling pin and stuff him down the garbage disposal.

Entering into the “Resolved: Butter” debate with a container of Parkay. All right, let’s just ignore for right now the fact that anyone whose food speaks to them needs to step up their Thorazine dosage schedule. If my food did speak to me, would I suffer back-talk from the condiments? No, I don’t believe I would. A pineapple could get uppity with me, because a pineapple has spikes and everything, but if the margarine gives me lip, it gets the boot.

Blowing bystanders away with my creative problem-solving techniques after eating a single mint. I have consumed literally thousands of Mentos in my life, and neither the traditional peppermint flavor nor the mixed-fruit variety enabled me to tackle predicaments with greater ease. I chowed an entire roll once when my car got a flat tire, and to my great disappointment, four burly guys in overalls totally failed to materialize and carry my coupe home. Bastards.

Reaching climax while shampooing my hair in an airplane bathroom. Believe it or not, I prefer to keep the time I spend in DC-10 commodes to an absolute minimum, and while my fellow passengers might hear moan of “ohhhh . . . ahhhh” coming from the toilet, these croonings would indicate not physical ecstasy but deep revulsion, since the average in-air toilet experience resembles an impacted bowel in both space and scent.

Tipping over backwards into a body of water after sipping instant iced tea. Where I come from, after you pour a glass of iced tea, you just drink the damn thing. You don’t lean into a pool while fully clothed.

Judging the relative effectiveness of a diaper or sanitary napkin with pale blue water. Let’s face it – if these products only had to block the egress of blue water, we wouldn’t care nearly as much whether they worked or not.

Running hand-in-hand down the beach with the Biscuit. I cannot imagine doing anything this goofy, particularly since 1) no bikini on earth gives me enough support to bound down the beach without putting my own eye out, and 2) the Biscuit would walk into the sea and drown himself before engaging in an activity that undignified – fortunately, because I used to have a boyfriend that liked to run around holding my hand and to sing to me, and I had to act all shy and happy when in fact I felt like throwing up.

Chit-chatting with my mom about douches. I wouldn’t feel embarrassed or anything; I can speak frankly about this sort of thing with my mother. But if the words “not-so-fresh feeling” left my lips, Ma would probably tell me to shut up.

Smashing up a kitchen with a cast-iron skillet in order to demonstrate the dangers of heroin. I break enough stuff around the house without doing it on purpose, and besides, if people don’t already know that heroin will kill you, I don’t think my demolishing the fixtures will get the message across. And if you really want to warn kids away from heroin, shouldn’t the spokesmodel weigh more than ninety pounds? Just a thought.

Convincing my parents that I don’t have a substance-abuse problem while staring fiendishly at a box of sugared cereal. My parents might contradict this assertion, after seeing me all jumpy and glassy-eyed from massive amounts of forbidden Cocoa Puffs when they came to pick me up from a week at Grandma’s, but as far as I know, I never equated Corn Pops with a secret stash. At least, not in front of them.

Watching “Flipper” in a treehouse. First of all, “Flipper” sort of sucked. Second of all, doesn’t lugging a television up there sort of defeat the entire point of a treehouse? Yeah, flat TV, great – I’d rather look at the moon through a telescope, or set up that thing with cans and string, or do anything that I couldn’t just as easily do indoors.

Telling an animated happy face to change all the prices in my Wal-Mart franchise. Again, I would have to confront the a priori problem of hallucinations, not to mention the a priori improbability of my supervising a Wal-Mart franchise, but in any case, if I ran the store, I’d rather have someone with arms doing the markdowns.

Bartering for better seats at a basketball game using chicken nuggets. Even if I felt like getting laughed out of Madison Square Garden, I’d still rather sit in the nosebleed seats and keep the snacks.

Availing myself of a bargain calling plan by conversing with cartoon characters on the phone. Perhaps this one should read “needing a bargain calling plan when I already have more money than God in a bull market,” but I probably don’t need to add that I wouldn’t waste my five-cent Sundays talking to Tweety Bird.

Arguing over the ownership of a frozen waffle. The last time I looked, Eggos come in packs of more than one. My little brother and I fought tooth and nail over the property rights to some pretty stupid stuff back in the day – the front seat, the red Matchbox car, the “good” black crayon – but even the highest fever of rabid territoriality couldn’t have made us quibble over a frozen breakfast item that tasted like cardboard to begin with. And if we HAD scuffled over it, you’d better believe that we would have appended a few choice epithets to the phrase “leggo my Eggo.”

Memorializing freeze-dried coffee in song with my a cappella group. I hate that dumb crappy ad, I hate that dumb crappy song, I hate that dumb crappy “Rock-a-pella” group, I hate that dumb crappy blond guy and his dumb crappy goatee and his dumb crappy falsetto solo, and I would really really like to pour some boiling hot Folgers in his cup and see if he still calls it “the best part of waking up.” I mean, the guy doesn’t just sing songs about coffee on a street corner – the guy PLAYS a guy who sing songs about coffee on a street corner. And the guy has not yet killed either himself or his agent.

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