PERUSING AND CRUISING

Yesterday while waiting for TLW (The Little Woman), I sat in front of the TV and put on SNY, ESPN, The YES Channel, and MLB. All are sports channels, and they all had one other thing in common!

They are filled with food commercials!

There is Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, MacDonald’s, Burger King, Chili’s, Red Lobster, and a bunch of others. They all portray themselves as family restaurants, catering to Moms, Pops and their little brats. All have happy, smiling faces.

On every one of these commercials, the food looks plentiful, colored well to look delicious, (lots of reds and yellows) and everyone is enjoying the experience of a high cholesterol, high sodium, and high caloric menu of treats.

I kept changing channels, hoping to find a sports show. I was looking for either baseball or football. Would have settled for college hoops, college football, and yes, even hockey. (In absolute desperation.) Even golf or tennis would have foot the bill by the time I was done looking.

In my perusing through the channels, it dawned on me that the major league clubs are missing the boat. Instead of names like the New York Yankees: how about the Burger King Yankees? The McDonald’s Mets, the Pizza Hut Jets, all renamed for the sake of saving me the time of having to sit through the commercials?

Instead of numbers, we would have:

“ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, TODAY’S LINEUP FOR THE MCDONALD’S METS:
LEADING OFF AND PLAYING SHORT STOP, FRENCH FRIES, JOSE REYES.
BATTING SECOND AND PLAYING SECOND BASE, KIDS MEAL, LUIS CASTILLO.”

You get the picture.

You watch the game. The ads keep coming, and you never go to a commercial!

Maybe shows like Boston Legal and CSI could follow the example. Crimes would be played out in restaurants. “The murder scene was right at the salad bar, Captain. I checked for condiment stains, and I found a suspect, as he was enjoying the double cheeseburger with fries and a large coke, a super-sized meal. We’ll remove the body, once we find a way to lift it and enlarge the exit so he can fit through and we can place him on the flat-bed truck.”

Please remember all those that need our hopes and prayers, like my brother-in-law, John.