Like most Americans, when I’m forced to flip on the television I watch just two things – sports and commercials. When I tune in to sports I learn about kids’ games with impossibly complicated rules and what the world looks like from a blimp and how millionaires behave when they take various forms of speed. And when I see the commercials I learn the nuances of modern society and how the power of suggestion can trick tiny human brains and that the engine of American commerce is generally fueled by, well, stupidity.

But I’m not complaining. How would I know anything about human nature, how would I know right from wrong, how would I understand what people are really like if I wasn’t able to watch – and believe in – the commercials that happen after every play during a football game?

So … I know that men are fat and have very little fashion sense so they will buy shirts that come with the sleeves already rolled up and can’t be tucked in. Shirts that are designed to cover the male beer gut and therefore don’t have to be tucked in aren’t a fashion statement, they’re a fattened statement. There’s a term for dudes who don’t tuck their shirts in, let me see if I can remember it … oh yeah, fat slob. Who would intentionally buy a shirt that didn’t come with enough fabric to be tucked in? If a guy walks around with his shirt untucked he probably also has his belt unbuckled and his shoes untied. If you walk around half-dressed the odds are pretty good you’re living live half-assed. Men have always been able to solve the menacing problem of a shirt becoming uncomfortable when tucked in – we call it buying a bigger fuckin’ size! The commercials that happen during football games are mostly about selling men something they don’t need to fix a problem they don’t have.

Commercials taught me that, apparently, young women will go out with any man as long as he smells good. Yep, skinny homely white dude, living at home, working on his GED … a guy that vapes and races drones can shag chick after chick as long as he buys aerosol perfume and sprays it over his entire body in a zig-zag pattern paying special attention to his crotch. That’s it. That’s all young gals are looking for. It seems a little bit oversimplified, makes girls seem a tad shallow, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be on my football game if it wasn’t true.

I learned that some people who invite you over to watch football will serve you food from McDonald’s but they’ll serve it on fancy plates in the hope of having you believe they made the chicken strips and Sausage McMuffins themselves. I suggest you avoid these people and their houses. If they will lie to you about chicken fingers how else will they try to deceive you? Maybe it’s not even their house at all, maybe they’re squatters. Maybe they work the night shift at Micky Dees, maybe they do kids parties dressed as Ronald McDonald, did you notice any big red shoes? Anything served on an English muffin is a sign you’re in the wrong place.

The commercials during football games enlightened me about the fact that if you buy a new car, any new car but mostly SUVs from second-rate makers like Acura and Infinity and Jeep, you mostly get to drive it on wide-open roads with beautiful scenery and oceans views. You’ll never have to deal with any traffic because it’s a new car and that means angels sing when you’re behind the wheel and life is like a holiday in a National Park. The weather will always be perfect with your new vehicle and you don’t have to worry about hitting a deer, or an elk or a slow-moving camper trailer because all the cars sold during a football game stop by themselves and there’s never any real danger even if you’re putting on your lipstick on a treacherous mountain road and seven bratty kids are fighting in the back seats … So cool.

Commercials teach us that American men can’t father their children or be left alone with them for the day unless their wives leave detailed messages and instructions and reminders on electronic devices strategically placed throughout the house. As the dopey male goes about the house in his fatherly pursuits the devices are programmed to shout out orders at random intervals. A computer voice tells him how to do the dishes, it gives him chores and a timetable for when to do them and it barks out remedial tips about what the baby needs and what their sounds and mannerisms might mean. Helpful right? I mean the dumb dad needs all the help he can get right? Women are smarter than men so why waste a perfectly good opportunity to make the husband feel small, hopeless and inferior? Thank god the electronic devices also remind him about taking a leak or poor dad might wet himself.

Football is an annual gift that proves the presence of a higher power. Commercials are a necessary evil that provide teaching moments for the dimwitted, these lessons seem to always cover the same subject – stupidity.

Photo credit: .reid. on VisualHunt.com / CC BY