Who falls for those dopey commercials?

Um, sometimes it's me.

I don't fall for the car insurance or the male enhancement products, but I do hanker for some of those kitchen gadgets I see demonstrated on television. The gadget that makes spaghetti in five minutes? Only $19.95, and if you act quickly you can get an extra one free? I want it. I would buy a bowflex in a split second, if I had the room and the money. I desperately want an Ionic Breeze.

Cleaning supplies--let me at them! A bathroom cleaner which eliminates all that tedious scrubbing--it's so powerful you don't even have to be in the room, perhaps not even in the house. You can clean the bathroom in absentia. That's for me!

Beauty products! At last, the key to looking and feeling 20 years younger--just what I was looking for. I know they don't work--but they might.
What have I got to lose, except money?

And the car commercials: all those nice views of people tooling along on some scenic highway, looking glamorous, the breeze in their hair, not a care in the world. If they showed fancy cars stuck in traffic on Rt 17 in New Jersey, who would ever buy one? But the urge to buy does come over me--and I'm a person who can't even identify my own car without looking at the license plate.

And I must admit, I have to supress the urge to call LendingTree.com and get a price on a second mortgage.

All these impulses are kept in check by the skepticism of Mr Charm, who thinks everything sold on television is an outright fraud. But, oh, those kitchen gadgets! They could change my life!