Enlightenment.

My short blogging hiatus can be blamed on self-loathing and lots of learning. As anyone in America is vividly aware, the Christmas season has now been upon us for a little over 9 weeks. It's not even December and I've heard every Christmas song ever recorded at least 12 times. I would be frustrated at the overkill but for those entertaining little nuggets of sales information we affectionately call commercials.

I started to feel bad when I saw an intriguing spot about a guy getting a slew of white elephant gifts for Christmas. (I'm not in the habit of memorizing television spots if they don't have a catchy jingle, so I'm taking the liberty of summarizing here.) The guy got a wicked looking clock, some little trinkets and it was evident he simply wasn't enjoying a fruitful Christmas season. I mean, really, how could you? The man had probably been a good boy (40 years old or so) the whole entire year and then...what?! No good toys? Aw, nothing but a bunch of junk he'd have to return in long lines. But, just when you think his holiday is a bust, the jolly voiceover reminds us that we have it within our power to rectify others' shopping follies. We can get what we really, really want. Cut to serene and snowy picture of 3 brand new Lexus' perfectly gift-wrapped. And just as I was getting bummed with the guy for all the crappy stuff he got for gifts, my hopes were renewed when I realized that if I visit a Twin Cities Lexus dealer and give them $35,000 of my own money, I can have a good Christmas, too. Brought to you by the car company who engineered a self-parallel-parking series. Life would be easier if someone else did the parallel parking, you'd have to admit.

And then I learned something from Dodge. I guess they have figured out how to bring the family together. Again, a wonderful service brought to us by those kindly generous higher ups in the executive community. They have actually done their research and found, first of all, that the family nucleus in America has suffered. Perhaps a result of the video games or internet or headphones or constant DVD's playing as babysitters...I mean, who truly knows why the family in America has suffered? It would take at least ten minutes to figure that out. And I don't have that kind of time. Regardless, Dodge is making some headway in this area of familial reconciliation. The voiceover tells us that "Dodge is bringing the family together again..." And guess what they found brings the family together, no kidding? A minivan (that looks exactly as past models without increased safety features) that has, get this-headphones and DVD's playing and video games! Dodge actually found that those same distractions that have caused a healthy family nucleus to become less interactive actually reunites the American family. That is so cool. I can't wait to have kids so we can pop in a DVD, crank up the tunes and never talk to our children in the backseat. And then kick my feet up and watch the reuniting take place. Thank you, Dodge.

This holiday season, if you want your dignity questioned and your intelligence insulted, watch lots of commercials.

(The author does indeed, for research purposes, recommend taking one 15-minute span of television watching time with your family or friends to critically analyze the advertising genius of American capitalism--then come to your own conclusions.)