So it’s back to work after the holidays.

I usually take my lunch in the break room, where there’s a TV. I try to catch a bit of the local news, but sometimes someone else will beat me to the channel knob, and I’ll have to suffer through daytime television—something like The Other Half, Seventh Heaven, Ricki Lake, or some kind of soap opera.

Today was unusual. When I came into the lunch room, one of the sales guys was watching Sesame Street, and after I picked my jaw up from the floor, I asked if I could watch the news. He let me change the channel, and I was as happy as a clam…

…until I realized that the advantage of watching Sesame Street on PBS over watching the local news on some network affiliate is that you’re on a channel that doesn’t have commercials.

In other words:

Even if you’re not watching junk TV during the day, you’re still getting the daytime junk commercials, and if you’ve ever seen them, you know the kind of commercials I mean; they’re the ones with cheap graphics, bad acting, and awful editing, usually for vocational schooling, law attorneys, or car insurance.

One particular type of car insurance commercial seriously bothers me, and I mean seriously. Every time one of them comes on, I have to place my hands tightly over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut, all the while muttering under my breath, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.”

Our web programmer teases me about it and will always say, “There’s your lover! There’s your favorite guy on TV!”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I CAN’T HEAR YOU, I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” I’d persist, shaking my head and ignoring his pointing finger.

And when the 30 seconds of hell have passed, I’ll return to normal, eating my lunch in peace and watching the news as though nothing ever happened.

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