"What's A Commercial?"

Earlier this evening, I was perusing a local news website. Our five-year-old, who can see an embedded video window from a thousand paces (chalk up yet another skill at which he's better than his father) insisted I let him watch the video the news site had on display.

"Really," I asked him. "It's about road construction."

"Yeah," he said. Of course, he's five. He loves construction vehicles. Our neighbor has a backhoe. He is worshiped as a god.

So I play the video. It starts with a commercial.

"Hey," my five-year-old says. "This isn't about road construction."

"Nope," I said. "It's a commercial."

"What's a commercial," he asked.

Wow. My kid doesn't know what a commercial is. I feel so proud.

We don't have satellite or cable TV in the house, see. Don't see the need. Don't want to pay all that money for something we don't really use. We've been married thirteen years, and in that time haven't subscribed to TV. Nor do we have the ol' rabbit ears or digital converter box going, either. So of course our kids don't know what commercials are. They know what previews are -- they see plenty of those on their movies. But not commercials.

I tell them they're not missing anything.

Maybe.