After these messages, we'll be right back.

I watch the NBC Nightly News pretty much every night and have realized that advertisers who choose that time slot are apparently under the impression that I am a man. Not only that, but they feel strongly that I most likely am a man with erectile dysfunction. Because oh my gosh, the ED medication commercials during the news! Every commercial break!

I don't understand the rationale in the one commercial of the people being outdoors in separate bathtubs. I believe it's the same commercial that lists "delayed back pain" among the side effects. What I wonder is, how did these guys decide that the delayed back pain had to do with the medication? Because it seems to me that, for the man using ED drugs, delayed back pain is likely to be a side effect of having sex. Or climbing out of a claw foot tub onto a boardwalk or meadow. But by far the worst part of this phenomenon is the way that by the end of the news, I wind up with the Viva Viagra song stuck in my head.

Another song that got indelibly imprinted on my brain was that Saved by Zero abomination that had to do with financing for a new truck. I haven't heard it in a while, which makes me hope that they came through on their promise about it being a limited-time event. I was beginning to very seriously doubt that the event was not going on into eternity.

I was, however, happy to find that Ground Control to Major Tom was featured in some commercial or other since I was a little concerned about how that had come to be running around in my brain so frequently of late.

Currently, I am watching Monday Night Football. Again, advertisers seem convinced that I am a man. But this time, they think I am a man who needs an easy Christmas gift for the woman in his life. They further believe that the woman in my life will be only too pleased to receive a mass-produced and heavily advertised diamond-crusted something or other from Kay Jewelers. This woman doesn't expect me to put any thought whatsoever into her gift. She just wants something mad-sparkly and preferably some variation on heart-shaped.

I do not mean to imply that sparkly items do not make good gifts. Just that a lot of us don't want the same damn sparkly item that every other woman on the planet is receiving this year, thanks to sports-related advertising. I assume this stuff is on NASCAR and the NBA as well. Probably also hunting, fishing, movies with lots of explosions and anything else that is assumed to be watched primarily by men.

This can only mean that the Kay commercials will be coming soon to the Nightly News. You know, on the off chance some of the guys decide to go the jewelry gift route, rather than having the side-by-side tubs installed in the back yard.

Viva...viva...Viagra!

DAMN IT.