I've mentioned before how I just don't seem to be on the same wavelength as the people who make TV commercials. Maybe I'm just not hip enough, but there are some that leave me scratching my head and trying to figure out, "How or why is this -supposed to make me want this product?"

Take, for instance, the commercial for the cell phone company where the blank-faced woman stuffs her child into a pet -carrier to get the child on a plane cheap, explaining to the audience with a creepy lack of -emotion that she needs to save money to pay her cell phone charges.

She's then accosted by a pair of equally creepy baggage handlers who look and speak like aliens who are trying to pass as human and failing badly at it. They tell the woman she can get cheap phone service from their company, before further confirming their alien-ness by failing to realize that the person speaking from inside the tiny cage is a human child and not a talking dog.

The same company used to run an ad where two talking pigs were enjoying a large plate of ham in a restaurant, explaining that what they're doing isn't as wrong as -paying high cell phone bills. Apparently, there's an ad agency out there that thinks child abuse, cannibalism and creepy humanoids are a hilarious way to peddle cell phone service.

I do not want to meet these people. Ever.

On the subject of phones, I'm glad that Apple's iPhone is soon going to start working with Verizon's phone network. But that ad with all the ticking clocks and people watching them, tapping their fingers, -anxiously awaiting the exact second when they can have a choice of which company drops their calls, does not make me want to get either an iPhone or Verizon's service. It makes me want to tell these people they really need to get a life.

Then there's the commercial for McDonald's coffee in which the young hipster-looking dude with the scruffy beard rudely and repeatedly tells everyone, including a passing dog, "Don't even talk to me before I've had my coffee."

Look, I like my cup of coffee in the morning. I like it more than just about anyone I know. And I have to say, Mickey D's makes a surprisingly good cup of Java. But I've got to tell you, this commercial does -nothing except make me want to smack that guy in his pretentious hipster face. Think you're too good to talk to people in the morning, you little twerp? Well, have a little talk with the back of my hand.

Also, I'd like to say a word or two about those Hyundai commercials where everyone who's not driving a Hyundai is a sheep. Hey, Hyundai? Here's a news flash. You don't make me want to buy your car by being smug and condescending. Just the opposite, in fact.

Oh, and here's a message to the folks at Charmin: those commercials for toilet tissue with the bears in the woods? We got the joke a long time ago, guys. Bears. Bodily functions. Woods. Really, we get it. It's just tiresome now, when it's not gross. Let it go.

While we're at it, let's face facts: Chester the Cheetos Cheetah has jumped the shark. He was kind of amusing when he was inciting put-upon young women to exact revenge. But when he starts enticing grown men into forts made out of mattresses, it's more than a little disturbing.

And what's the deal with the -commercial where Chester and a female music store employee are tormenting another employee - who is, it should be noted, actually eating Cheetos - by playing "Chopsticks" over and over? What message does this send? "Eat our product and we'll still be a jerk to you"? It's almost enough to make me want to boycott Cheetos. Almost.

Tonight is, of course, the Super Bowl, which, among many other things, is the time when advertisers roll out a whole bunch of new commercials.

I probably won't get most of them, either.

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes and practices law in Carthage. Contact him at dustyr@nc.rr.com.