How come my insurance guy can't fly like Flo?

I was watching football on TV last Sunday, and after somebody fumbled or threw an interception or whatever, the game stopped for a couple minutes so the network could play commercials.

Shoot, I don't mind. The fellows need to catch their breath, so I might as well watch informative and often amusing messages about amazing products and services in the interim.

One of my favorites is the Flying Insurance Lady, Flo. She always has some witty or novel way to hawk her company's car insurance.

You wouldn't think car insurance would be so much fun, but sometimes this lady floats right up into the air next to that big sign that lets you compare your rates to those of several other companies.

She's always in a big, gleaming white room with no definite boundaries, suggestive of heaven.

I've covered enough government meetings as a reporter to know it's not always easy to make a dry subject interesting to the general public, but Flo nails it every time. I laugh and laugh.

My car insurance guy, Ralph, is down the street from my office. He also is a pretty amusing guy, but I've never seen him float up in the air. I'm thinking about switching companies.

To be fair, I only stop in at Ralph's once or twice a month to say hello, so I could be missing some floating.

I wonder if car insurance guys cringe when they watch that commercial where the SUV crashes through a stone wall and emerges in slow motion, without a scratch, on the other side. I'm thinking that must work on the same principle used by the karate fellows who can break bricks with a single chop.

When I was in college, a friend of mine was really into Tae Kwon Do. This was long before "Walker: Texas Ranger," so he was a relatively rare specimen. His nickname was "Ninja."

We both attended a speech class in which one assignment was to give a speech that demonstrated how to do something. I chose as my topic "How to Give a Speech Without Any Preparation Whatsoever."

Ninja chose "How to Break Boards With Your Bare Hands."

Ninja hammered those boards for about 10 minutes, then, red-handed and red-faced, sat down. He still got a better grade than my D, and I don't remember which of us got more laughs.

What bothers me about that crashing-through-awall commercial is that there's no disclaimer or warning message. It doesn't say "Professional driver, closed course" or "Don't try this at home."

Now, I am surely not in favor of more government regulations to thwart the success of businesses, but there ought to be a law. I bet there are people on the other side of the Mississippi who are driving into stone walls all over the place because of that commercial.

On the other hand, the Earth has a carrying capacity of about two billion humans once the fossil fuels run out, so we have to get rid of about five billion between now and then. I reckon the people who drive their cars into walls on purpose might as well go first. I hope they're showing that commercial in other countries too.

I own a little SUV, and I reckon I could drive it into a brick wall real fast, but I don't know how to drive in slow motion on the other side, so I haven't tried it.

Well, that's not strictly true. I have one spark plug wire that keeps popping off, and when it does that, I kind of drive in slow motion up the hill out of Twin Bridges, which can frustrate the folks behind me a little bit.

When you hit middle age, you become one of the people who is driving a hair slower than the average anyway. Either that, or people are just in more of a hurry these days.

This is an in-between age in which the older folks in front of you are going too slow and the younger folks behind you think you are.

My wife and I make up little stories about the people driving in front of us on the way to town.

"Looks like Esther and Nathaniel got hold of Trish's keys again," I'll say, and Joyce will come back with something like, "Yep. There ain't a nursing home that can hold 'em."

We keep ourselves entertained and I avoid pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

I do worry about Flo.

She's always so chipper when she's floating around and comparing rates, but if you look close, there's sadness in those eyes.