Commercials piss me off by their very existence, but there’s something I just don’t understand. In our supposedly politically correct world, why is it okay to portray men as dull-witted, football-watching idiots who can’t even do something so simple as make a phone call to buy car insurance, or look after the kids for a day? I don’t find it any more amusing to show some guy stuffing the washer full and dumping in a container of detergent and half a bottle of bleach, vacuuming crumbs off the baby with a Dustbuster and picking up toys with the leaf blower (why are the kids sitting there while Dad picks up after them anyway–are their arms broken or something?) than I would to see a commercial that portrays a woman as too clueless to balance her chequebook or change a flat tire on her own car. Women’s groups would have FITS if something like that ever made it to TV! My husband was born in 1954 and gender roles were more sharply defined when he was growing up, but somehow he managed to learn how to cook without microwaving a box from the freezer, and although he’s probably never going to be my first choice to do the laundry, he can manage if you’re not too fussy about sorting. My brother is probably better at ironing than I am, and I’m the kind of person who actually uses starch. Sure, there are men who are incompetent idiots, but so there are women equally as incompetent and idiotic, and it’s fair only to poke fun at both, or at neither.