If you’ve watched any Olympics coverage you’ve doubtless seen the commercial. A good looking hunky shirtless guy irons his girl’s clothes while making 6-month Anniversary reservations on the phone. There’s some background patter about the Chevy Traverse, and then you see the guy cleaning the toilet. (Sorry, I couldn’t find the video online)

At first, my kids just asked me what this ad meant and why it was a car commercial. That’s a fair question, but I had to watch it two or three times before I figured it out. It strikes me that commercials which are that hard to figure out might be missing the mark. But then I’m clearly not in the target demographic. In retrospect, I should have just said it was a commercial for girls and left it at that. But I’m only that smart in hindsight. So I try to explain that Chevy is depicting a “perfect man” from a girl’s point of view and equating that to the perfect car.

But this begs the obvious question, is that really what girls want? Well… no. It’s what some girl’s think they want, but most girls wouldn’t really want you to act like that. Well… maybe the cleaning the toilet part… and the washboard abs, most girls would rather like that (but not the 2 hours a day you spent in the gym). And okay, remember an anniversary now and again, but don’t remember more dates than they do. Some would like you to iron your own damn clothes, but most wouldn’t want you anywhere near theirs. And in my experience, they’d be suspect of a guy who can accurately separate laundry. Guys do laundry on the theory of “if it gets wet, it’s clean”. In fact, we think that about most things which is why we don’t clean the toilet. It’s already wet.

“Gee that sounds awfully complicated.”

Yes, but not really. Clean up after yourself. Pay attention to her. And frankly, knowing how to fix the toilet is often more highly valued than knowing how to clean it. Remember Red Green‘s sage advice: “If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” An adage that is more true the older you get. Which is fortunate since you tend to get more handy as you age, but not more handsome. Unless you’re Sean Connery or Paul Newman… I suspect no one cares if they can fix a toilet.