If there was ever a plague of pandemic proportion, afflicting an entire planetary civilization, it was, is, and will be THE COMMERCIAL. We are exposed to that affliction every waking moment of our lives.

Commercials affect the way we live our daily existence. Take me, for instance. I usually start my day watching the Daily News, a thirty-minute program presenting local, state, national, and international happenings, sometimes of interest, more often than not innocuous, and sometimes downright boring as well as incorrect.

The station breaks away from its presentation every five minutes to present five to six commercials. Mathematically speaking, for a thirty-minute program, I receive 50 percent news and 50 percent information about products I do not need, and even if I needed them, I certainly would not purchase them because commercials told me that I couldn’t live without them.

Television, as well as radio, is only one small part of the commercial invasion launched by countless advertisement agencies interested mostly in access to your pocketbook. There are newspapers and magazines with very little literary content and countless ads, targeting readers from kindergarten to fifth-grade level, appealing to the narcissistically inclined individual and causing a sense of nausea within the thinking person. I gave up the daily local scandal sheet a long time ago when I realized that journalistic principles were no longer observed.

There is also the telephone. Whether you are on the "do not call"list or not, calls still show up on your caller ID, most of them masquerading as "blocked,""unknown,""charitable contribution,"etc. Some of those calls are made by what my friend Alexandra calls "…the scum of the earth." There are the scammers who tell you that they are your bank representatives, and other concerns that have access to numbers that give access to your bank account. My bank traced one of those calls to be coming from Canada.

It gets even wilder on my computer. The most commonly used trap is the one that will promise a download of your choice absolutely free. A professional hacker can use the path of that download to gain access to your e-mail. If you do your banking via computer, hackers attempt to gain access to all of your banking transactions. An interesting documentary demonstrated exactly how easy it is to gain access to those important numbers, as well as access to your e-mail account, and to all the people listed there as friends, relatives, and acquaintances. Within 30 seconds, the hacker had enough information to employ an army of telemarketers with all the information vital to successful thieving.

Although I am cautious when I make a purchase on the Internet, I frequently find myself deluged with offers to lengthen a part of my anatomy that, being female by nature, I simply do not have. I tried once to respond to the individual whose name appeared on the e-mail with some well chosen words, only to find out that these people are shielded from receiving e-mail. Business concerns using that approach for monetary gain are equally shielded. Clarence taught me how to deal with that a long time ago. Clarence stated my grandmother’s philosophy in his own words: "Nothing in life is free."

With that in mind, I have decided to take a positive approach to the crass commercialism of the third millennium. If it shows up on the computer, delete it. Don’t speak on the phone unless you’re spoken to by a friend, or at least someone you know. Telephone solicitors are rarely honest and forthright. Use the trash can on the computer for anything that even faintly smacks of soliciting. Return that mountain of overkilled forest in your mailbox to the sender. I know these people are dense; "one brick shy," Gerry tells me, and my grandmother refers to them as obnoxiously ignorant and generally not worth my attention. Above all, I do try to have a positive attitude. "#&*$"@@#$%^&*" My editor tells me I can’t say that in my common language.