The other day I made the mistake of watching television. I must have had time to kill and was tired of banging my head against the wall for entertainment, so on went the switch.

On the screen were a couple of cavemen who were bemoaning their fate about their lack of intelligence and the fact that their inherent stupidity to understand anything was being exploited by a company who wanted to sell something. It must have been a very poor ad, because I can’t remember what they wanted me to buy. I don’t think that they were selling "World Book," although they surely need to read it. Frankly I liked the talking gecko better because he was cute and was pretty smart.

Of course, you all know my experience with diuretics and the traffic woman doing her Scottish Highland Fling while singing "Gotta Go, Gotta Go." While she was still contemplating going, I already went, encouraged by 80 mg of diuretic. My fondest wish was that I would make it just once to the bathroom.

But there are a lot of ads that make no sense to me at all. Someday I hope to find out what Victoria’s Secret is all about _ they never come out and tell you and it is rather difficult to maintain a thought line when women are strolling around in their underwear.

I also liked the ads where women were playing basketball in high heels. I could just picture "Coach," coming onto the floor and seeing what those heels were doing to his varnished floor.

There would be a very short, death-defying silence and then there would be an eruption equal in magnitude to Mount St. Helens. I’d buy a ticket to that one.

Or what about the shower cleanser that does the job of three cleaning ladies in your shower. If I’m in the shower, there simply is no room for three scrub women, and I don’t care how friendly they are, we are not going to get the job done.

(Reflecting on that statement makes me realize that this could be fun. I would just love the opportunity of trying to explain three bubble-covered women standing in the shower with me to my wife.)

Did you ever wonder where ads come from? After finishing my exercises one morning, I went into my search engine and answered an ad to become a detective at "The Close Cover Before Striking School of Detecting" (TCCBSSOD). It guarantees that upon completion of the course you will not only be able to detect something, you will also raise your IQ 50 percent.

Like the bloodhound on the cover of TCCBSSOD, I put my nose to the pavement and started detecting. My first stop was going to be that diner where they serve nothing but pancakes that sell like hotcakes that resulted from placing an ad in a local venue. She gives all the credit to the cleverness of advertising. What she failed to report, which was the result of my investigation, was that she would have to sell $10,000 worth of hotcakes to just pay for the ad.

I went down to Madison Avenue in New York City where ads are "hatched." I wanted to get a job as a "tester" of new products to determine market reaction to a product. (This is top secret from here on, so you must take a vow of silence.) I was taken up to the 30th floor, where I met the one single person responsible for all the advertising today. He sat on a throne with a Burger King Crown on his head and I read his name plate on his desk, Mr. Igotta Lobotomy.

I was told that his time is so valuable that he has lost the ability to speak _ all he does is react, facially or physically. He grunts and smiles or says nothing at all. People stood in line anxious to show him their latest creations. He grunted and smiled at an ad for Red-shell Lobster. (I found out later he loves lobster and eats them shell and all.) There was no reaction to an ad showing a whole bunch of foaming bubbles cleaning the inside of a toilet bowl. (Maybe it didn’t represent his best side?) I believe there was a grunt for a petroleum company ad, but I’m not sure it might have been just gas.

I heard a week later that Mr. Lobotomy laughed himself to death when someone showed him a clipping about a bunch of politicians voting favorably on a tax increase without ever reading it. I understand that his last mumbled words were, "How stupid can they get?"

As time goes by, surely we will have bigger "winners." Elections are coming up.

Whatever happened to old fashioned advertising?

Henry Geerken is a three-time NYSUT award-winner writing humorous articles addressing retiree and senior citizen concerns. He can be reached by e-mail at hgeerken@stny.rr.com.