“Bobby! How’s it going, dude?” Josh leaned over the cubicle wall. “Great Super Bowl, huh?”
“Yeah. Great game.” Robert did not look up from his computer key board.
“Whoa, man, what happened?” Josh came around the cubicle wall to get a closer look at his friend. “Did your team lose you a lot of money?”
“Nah. The game was fine. It’s the commercials. They make me sick and tired.” Josh banged his “enter” key with a flourish and looked up.
“What!? You didn’t like the polar bears?” Josh said half-jokingly. He knew his friend didn’t get upset easily over trivial matters. “What gives, man?” He could see the fire in Robert’s eyes.
“I am sick and tired of commercials that portray males as slobbering sexual idiots, females as sex objects, and heaven as some sexual fantasy place.”
“Is this a religious thing?” Josh asked. He knew Robert was a professing Christian.
“No, man.” Robert was adamant. “It’s my head they’re messing with. Do you know what that does to your mind – when you see all those scantily clad females dancing around in some idiot male mind? You begin to think that this kind of behavior is normal. You begin to believe this is how we should think of each other…that we are just sex objects to be exploited…that life is just a big party.”
“Easy, man. They’re just commercials on TV. Everyone knows that isn’t reality.”
“Yeah. Tell that to Delbert.” Robert turned back to his computer, staring at its blank screen.
“You mean the guy over in accounts receivable?” Josh looked puzzled as Robert nodded. “Why? What happened to him?”
“He and some of the girls in shipping seem to have accepted that fantasy world as reality.” Robert shook his head, trying to grasp the stark reality of what had happened. “Now he’s in a messy divorce and might lose custody of his kids.” Robert looked up at Josh and nodded. “Yeah, those cute kids in the picture that he has on his desk – the ones that he’s always bragging so much about.”
“Oh, wow.” Josh rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his hair as he walked around in a small circle trying to take it all in. “Oh, wow.”
Robert put his head in his hand. “Those commercials totally ruined the game for me, man.” He stood and headed for the coffee machine, then paused and turned around. “I’m telling you, I am sick of these perverse advertisements and I am tired of the bombardment, man.” He spun around and walked away. “I am sick and tired of it all,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“Oh, wow,” Josh muttered as he turned back to his cubicle.