I am an expert in things that are the moral equivalent of other things (Ad It Up, 3)

First off, when I first looked at this:


My immediate reaction was to turn back a page and see if I missed the first part of the ad.

But there was no first part of the ad. Am I wrong in thinking that the above ad seems to be a continuation from an earlier page? Like there was a page ahead of this one, a page which would have included an example of something takes, shall we say "Nuts" that aren't "Grape?"

As I said, though, there was no earlier ad to which this one referred. Just this ad, which, as a second point, seems to me to be about two years behind the times. That whole "Man" craze when all the ads were talking about how manly men do this and manly men do that (a craze that was just as stupid, but more short-lived, than things being X-treme) has come and gone, or I assumed it had, but apparently not, because I am still forced to see the above ad in the Sports Illustrated I stole from The Boy.

(I shouldn't say I "stole" it, because it's not stealing if he wasn't going to read it, right? The issue had been sitting around on Sweetie's desk for about three days, untouched, and I decided that if The Boy wasn't going to read it, I could, so I took it.)(It's bad form, I think, to read someone else's magazine before they do. It's bad form, too, to watch someone's TV show or read their newspaper before they do. I know it doesn't actually change the content when someone watches a show I've recorded and then I watch the show I've recorded, but it seems different, and so does reading a magazine after someone else has read it.)

So thirdly, about this ad, it really caught my eye for two reasons: (1) It's very purply. (2) "Grape Nuts" are now manly cereal? I thought "Grape Nuts" were a granola type of cereal eaten by earnest guys whose hair has gone gray and who have a ponytail that's too long and too gray to be artsy and ends up just being nerdsy. Like George Carlin without the attitude or sometimes-funny jokes.

Like this guy. I know he doesn't have a ponytail, but he does eat cattails, and that's the moral equivalent of a ponytail:



So now I'm confused. If I eat "Grape Nuts," and I one step away from revving my GTO's engine at a stoplight on Highway 100... or one step away from moving to a cabin in Montana and eating things that even deer don't think are food?

Ad It Up! is my ongoing look at ads that I like, or dislike -- and a very subtle promotion itself for my own program of selling ads in my upcoming book.

Click here to find out how to advertise in my next best seller.

Click here to read a funny story about the things I think while I'm driving.