8/27/09 The Secret Message of Paper Towel Commercials

You want to know what I think is the absolute best hands-down contraceptive commercial on TV today? I'll give you a hint. It's not the one where the women are jumping into a pool all synchronized-swimming like, singing "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...". It's not the one where the group of women are sitting around a trendy nightclub together, looking enraptured while their snooty doctor friend tells them about the possible side effects and chances of stroke. (Although aren't you dying to be that woman's friend?) Nononononono. I'll tell you which one is best.

It's the paper towel commercial.

You know the one I'm talking about. It's the one where the small toddler person is using a cereal bowl as a drum set, and every time he smacks his spoon more milk-drenched cheerios fly across the room. It's the one where the little girl upends an entire gallon of juice in the middle of the kitchen floor for no apparent reason. A third child chases a large woolly dog (who obviously has a weekly mud wresting engagement) across the room, leaving mud and slime and Heaven-knows-what-else in soggy dog tracks all over the white tile. And right about the time that the entire kitchen is destroyed beyond repair, the perfectly-coiffed mother comes in and gives this good-natured smile as if to say, "Oh, those sweet little rascals! Good thing I have my super strong paper-towels handy!" Then Mom and child spend a moment bonding as she gets down on her hands and knees and lovingly scrubs the entire floor clean with one paper towel before rinsing it out and using it to gently wipe the corner of smiling-child's mouth. Cue music, everyone hugs, the kitchen is spotless again!

To which I say, WHAT. THE. CRAP. WAS. THAT?!?

Now, maybe I'm missing some vital maternal gene here, but if I came in to a kitchen covered in juice and cereal and wet muddy dog tracks, I would not be smiling and wiping the little cretins' faces. No sir! I'd be using my super-absorbent roll of Brawny to beat the little snots about the head and shoulders as they ran for their lives!

Oh, I realize that accidents happen and kids are messy. It's just the nature of the little beasts. But I'm sincerely hoping that the paper towel commercials are being ridiculously exaggerated. (Please Lord, let them be exaggerated. Otherwise the human race as we know it will be destined to failure). Every time I see those little brats gleefully tip an entire pitcher of milk over just to slash around in the resulting puddles, my ovaries cringe a little more. If motherhood means being able to smile and be all, "You threw your cereal all over the house? Oh well, no harm done!" then I am sooooo not signing up for that. For one, the children would not survive, and then my face would be plastered all over Nancy Grace when I was convicted on multiple counts of manslaughter. (And if that's not a good marketing scheme for birth control, then I don't know what is). They may have started out trying to sell paper towels, but the subliminal message definitely reads "Woman beats child to death with quilted quicker picker-upper...news at 11". Stop and watch the commercial the next time it comes on. You'll see what I mean.

Suddenly snooty doctor friend with the annoying habit of going on and on about contraceptives isn't looking so bad now, is she?