I hate radio commercials. I think they are annoying, intrusive, obnoxious noise. The stupid premises, the grating voices, the repetitiveness. In fact, I have vowed not to shop at certain stores because of their radio commercials.

For instance, I will never, ever, EVER shop at Sit ‘N Sleep. I don’t care if they start selling their mattresses for a nickel. The premise is this: one guy, Larry, is lowering the prices on mattresses. The other guy (the accountant?) yells, “You’re killing me, Larry!” in a strangled, whiney, voice that makes me want to gouge out my ear drums with a screwdriver. Yes, it is that bad.

Then, there’s their inane tag line “We’ll beat any advertised price, or your mattress is free!” Does that make sense? WHY, WHY would they give away a mattress when they can just beat any advertised price? $50 is better than free, so WHY EVEN SAY THIS? And the stupid guy doesn’t just say, “Or your mattress is free!” He says, “Or your mattress is freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” You, sir, are worse than Hitler. You are like a Super-Hitler. And you must be stopped.

What is it with mattress companies and aggravating ads? In Pittsburgh, there was a horrible store Sleep Mart. It was owned by a guy named Tony, and according to Tony, he’s got it. Yep, the slogan was just “Tony’s Got It!” said over and over by children, half-senile seniors, and yinzers alike. They even changed the name of the store to “Tony’s Got It!” but alas, I think they went out of business.

A non-mattress-related irritating spot is the infamous YSU Campus Book and Supply commercial in Youngstown, OH. The jingle, “Campus Book and Supply. The books you need for a price you can afford!” was sung by a woman who was completely tone deaf. She really hit the “ply” in “Supply,” lending it a nasal tone rarely matched outside of Fran Drescher’s dressing room.

Finally, the one commercial that started this whole rant… and I have no idea why. Bank of America is touting its new FREE payroll service to small businesses. They go on and on about how great the service is, but they don’t reveal until the end that there’s a catch.

The catch is is that the service isn’t free unless every employee has a Bank of America account with direct deposit. How practical is that? Who will be able to take advantage of this free offer then? What, is every business going to force their employees to have a BoA account? Look, BoA, if you’re going to shout to the rooftops that something is free, why not make it truly free? It’s like when I got that $50 gift certificate for signing up with you, and then I got taxed on it. So sneaky. It’s almost as bad as the Sit ‘N Sleep ads. Almost.