Liar, liar pants on fire.

Commercials make me angry. Not because there are so many, or that they interrupt my shows at the best parts, but because quite often they are less than truthful.

I first noticed around Christmas, Valentines, and Mother's day how the frequency of jewelery commercials shoots through the roof. They are on the TV, in the mail, on the radio, on billboards. You can't avoid them. They are constant, and persistent. They are aimed at men, telling them that if they only buy this open heart, or 3 jeweled something then that means they love their wife. Their wife needs it, and if she is actually of any value to them, then they must rush to Kay or Zales and buy this new item. And don't worry, the next holiday will have another must-have-if-you-actually-love-your-wife-at-all item. Now am I denouncing jewelery? Nope. Am I saying husbands are wrong for buying those new necklaces and rings and bracelets for their wives? Not at all. If my husband spoiled me with new jewelery I wouldn't complain AT ALL. What I hate is the WAY these items are advertised. If you think I'm being dramatic, next Christmas count the amount of jewelery commercials and listen to what they say and imply.. Last Christmas there was a commercial on the Fish, you know the Christian station, full of uplifting music centered on Jesus? The commerical was a conversation between a wife and husband and you can hear the wife's thoughts and she calls her husband "an idiot" for not knowing to buy her that new ring from such and such jewelery company. I found myself yelling at the radio, by myself in the car. The people next to me probably thought I was crazy, and maybe I am, but advertisements like that truly rub me the wrong way.

Now, I do appreciate the intelligence behind some ads (the Shick personal trimmer ad makes me laugh EVERY DANG TIME), and I am sure it's rough to stand out in a sea of thousands upon thousands of products. And it is tricky to convince us Americans that there is yet another item we cannot live without, right?

And by chance do your kids watch Saturday Morning cartoons? Cause those guys are smart too, as soon as it nears Christmas EVERY ad is about toys, toys the kids need to be cool, to have fun. Toys that are obviously way better than anything else they have ever had and that they totally need RIGHT NOW. I sat down one day to watch them with Serena and after every commercial, she'd look at me with a big grin and say "I want that!" And being the commercial hating mom I am we talked about how commercials lie. Only I didn't say it like that so much. I said if we watched 2 pizza commercials, for 2 different companies, who both said their pizza is the best, can they both be right? Can two things be the best? Or what about (insert toy name here) that we got and it was nothing like the commercials, and not really fun at all? Commercials are meant to make you want to buy stuff, that's their job. She got it (as much as an 8 year old can really get it), but it's still a struggle with every new toy that's advertised.

Well the other day I saw a commercial for Chef Boy-R-Dee that made me mad. "A full serving of vegetables in every can." Yeah, so maybe that's NOT a lie, but the underlying message is that can of ravioli is a healthy food choice for your kids. But what ELSE is in that can of "healthy"? Half a can has 240 calories, 7g of fat, 3g saturated fat, 20 mg cholesterol, and 1180mg of sodium!!!!!!!!!!!! The sodium level is half of an ADULTS daily amount of sodium, so if you eat the whole can you may get a serving of vegetables, but look what comes along with it!

So here's what I want you to do, next time you're watching TV, really watch the commercials, don't flip to another channel. Watch them, and listen to them. To what they say, what they imply, and how they lie by omission. And see that I'm not crazy, commercials lie, lie, lie!