Has this happened to you? You\u2019re sitting on the sofa watching TV. Well, more likely you\u2019re zoned out, waiting to watch TV while an endless series of commercials hog the cable feed. The phone rings. If you still have a landline, you get up and go to answer it, only to discover it wasn\u2019t your phone ringing; it was a phone in the ad on TV.<\/p>\n
Even if you got rid of your landline years ago, you still get up, or start to; it\u2019s an automatic response. The ad people are smart; they know we zone out after 10 seconds of advertising and since most commercial breaks go on for two minutes or more, they do something to get our attention. They know we come preprogrammed, just like Pavlov\u2019s dogs. Ring a dinner bell and a dog salivates; ring a phone bell and we wake up. And, in my case, get up and answer it.<\/p>\n
The ability of the ad people to snap us to attention is a real science. The first step in the process was to increase the volume of the commercials. Even though the FCC outlawed the practice more than 40 years ago, the networks still do it. They know the agency isn\u2019t paying attention so why not make ads loud? We use our remotes to crank the volume down. That\u2019s when the ringing phone comes in.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they switch to a ringing doorbell. I swear it\u2019s an exact match to the bell at our house. It gets my attention every time. Another Pavlov\u2019s dog deal, but I\u2019ve trained myself to ignore it. Every so often it will be followed by a loud knock. Someone really is at the door. I say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry; I couldn\u2019t hear the bell. My hearing isn\u2019t what it used to be.\u201d It\u2019s a lie. But, when you\u2019re an old coot, it\u2019s a believable lie.<\/p>\n
And, it\u2019s not just at home; this ringing that gets my attention. It happens in the car too. I\u2019m tooling along in an old coot stupor with the radio playing and all of a sudden I\u2019m startled into consciousness; a siren is sounding. I look around to get ready to pull over, and then figure out it\u2019s just the radio. My blood pressure settles back down and I return to my zombie state. Then, a Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! brings me back to life. The radio again. This time it\u2019s a car dealer\u2019s ploy to get my attention. I make a mental note, \u201cNever buy a car from that dealer!\u201d<\/p>\n
I settle down, but this time my blood pressure only makes it half way back to normal. Then, the phone rings. The ad people get me again. Intellectually, I know it\u2019s the sound of a house phone and I\u2019m in a car, but it doesn\u2019t matter, I\u2019m a Pavlov dog. I start to get up; thankfully the seat belt prevents me from doing so. I guess I deserve it, my excessive use of \u201cback in my day\u201d to start a conversation has a similar effect on people within earshot. It gets them up too. But, in their case, it\u2019s for good reason; they need to get far away as fast as possible or subject themselves to a long-winded boring reminiscence.<\/p>\n
Complaints, comments? \u2013 Send to mlessler7@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Has this happened to you? You\u2019re sitting on the sofa watching TV. Well, more likely you\u2019re zoned out, waiting to watch TV while an endless…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n