Now I Can't Stop Thinking About Milkshakes.

I chugged on the elliptical trainer this morning, wearing the last clean gym shirt in the rotation. It’s a red, white and blue soccer jersey with “coach” on the back. Not only do I look goofy in it, but how are you supposed to sweat in one of those things? The perspiration on my torso ran around like a champion basketball coach looking for someone to hug.

Thankfully, my shorts performed admirably, soaking up the downward flowing burden of the ugly and nonabsorbent Eurogeek wear.

On the machine next to me was an elderly woman I’d never seen before. I'd entered the Y parking lot this morning just as she climbed out of her Prius. She hadn’t pulled forward far enough into her space, and her car stuck out about six feet into the driving area. By the time I’d gotten out of the minivan, she’d slowly hobbled halfway up the stairs. Thus began my dilemma:

Should I:

A) tell her that her car is sticking out and then watch her gingerly go down the stairs and stagger back to her vehicle, risking a broken hip and ensuing death from pulmonary edema? 

Seemed prickish.

B) ask her for her keys and offer to move her car?

Little too Ted Bundy. And I'll bet she remembers when he was on the loose.

I chose C) do nothing—overwhelmingly the most common answer in these personal character quizzes.

Anyway, back at the elliptical, as usual I was listening to sports radio and a commercial came on for a new beer, “Miller Fortune,” with 6.9 percent alcohol content. It's aimed at Millennials and its slogan is “You might choose a regular beer. But then you might get a regular night. Try Miller Fortune, now with ecstasy.” That third sentence is actually not part of the ad, just a little marketing nugget for the folks at Miller, free of charge.

I started thinking about the barrage of products the fiercely competitive beverage industry has doused us with, finally realizing that since I was old enough to pop the top on a Squirt, I've drizzled nearly every make and model of liquid refreshment down the old gorge. 

As Julio Iglesias once crooned into the craggy glower of Willie Nelson, “Dude, I have loved them all.”

Regrettably, many I’ll never again sample, due either to discontinuation or the clammy, Schick-Shadle-type aversion I've acquired for them over the years. 

Among the drinks I've grown to abhor are:

The Graveyard—Next time you’re at Shakey’s, take a pitcher over to the pop machine and mix together Sprite, Coke, root beer and orange pop. You’ll realize how they came up with Mr. Pibb and then you'll get a scorching gut ache.

California Cooler—Remember the two-liter bottles filled with bright orange and red and purple poison? The neon glow of your lips and tongue betrayed your toxic choice for the evening.

Shasta Chocolate Soda—Around for just a couple shallow gags back in the Seventies. No big mystery, though, since it tasted of fizzy pork bullion.

Budweiser or Bud Light or Bud with Lime or even “Meat Bud,” a satisfying Pilsner with a hearty slab of jerky cleverly attached to the can—Nothing personal against Anheuser Busch; actually it’s quite personal. Let’s just say Bud's products tend to launch a blitzkrieg on my lower intestinal London.

Still reading? Thanks.

Finally, Olde English 800—As if the “e” on the end of “old” makes this swill any more chokedownable. This beverage, when fresh from the frosty confines of the AM/PM cooler, is tolerable at best. But that last tepid half-inch of a forty is like sucking on Tuesday's roadkill through a green Starbucks straw.

Gross, sorry. I don’t want to end on a down note, so here’s a quick list of my five favorite drinks:

Chocolate malt

IPA

Jamba Juice Orange Dream Machine

Coppola Merlot

Mug Root beer float 

Looks like I’ve got my lunches lined up for next week.

Where's the remote?

Last night saw the debut of another season of NFL Monday Night Football. Now, I realize I've already touched upon football and its idiosyncrasies, so I won't beat that horse any further. Not only, however, was it the beginning of another football season, but also marked was the onset of a fresh batch of television advertising. I've worked in the advertising profession for twenty years, and I probably pay a little too close attention to this stuff, but here's what I found.

It seems like every advertiser attempts to top not only its competitors, but also its own previous products. For example, Pizza Hut started out pushing just pizza, you know—crust, sauce, cheese and toppings. Then they decided there wasn't quite enough saturated fat on there, so they also stuffed the crust with cheese. And this year, they've introduced cheese-stuffed-crust pizza with an additional ring of cheese on top of the crust. Seriously? Why doesn't the delivery person show up with little cans along with your pizza so you can have a Cheez-Whiz chaser with every bite? Watching that commercial, I could almost feel the lumpy curds of mozzarella coursing through my arteries toward their final resting place along my left ventricle.

And that's just the beginning of the extreme advertising makeover this year. Now there's lime-flavored light beer. How much are we trying to accomplish here? Or, how about the KFC "Famous Bowl" with fried chicken, corn, cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy. The folks at Kentucky Fried could've saved quite a bit in research and development if they just asked my dad for one of his crockpot recipes.

On the high testosterone front, we see bearded men driving trucks call "Ram" and "Tundra" and "Tacoma" (Tacoma?) scaling sheer rock cliffs while pulling trailers filled with lead boulders. 

And who can forget those ads showing attractive, middle-aged couples of all shapes and sizes smiling amorously at each other, and we all know why—that little blue pill. Those drive me crazier than any of the aforementioned marketing ploys combined, and it's simply because they always seem to come on when I'm watching TV with one of my daughters. One of the first times this occurred, my daughter, who was about eight at the time, asked me what that pill was for. I tried to explain it as succinctly and simply as an eight-year-old needed to know. 

"Do all men use that pill, Dad?" 

"No, not all men," I uncomfortably replied. 

And then, she dropped the bombshell. "Do you?"

I got up, picked up the phone and ordered a pizza.