Indecent Exposure

Here's a problem you don't have every day: I'm in my friend's television commercial, and I hate it.

Some background: Friends who run their own business hooked up with a television production company to film a commercial that will run sporadically on cable channels nationally. They approached my husband and I to be in it, as customer testimonials.

Now I balked from the very start. While I'm flattered that they view us as some of their more 'attractive' friends and wanted us to be in their commercial, I just don't like those sorts of things. I don't want to be in any spotlights and prefer to be behind the scenes. I cannot tell you why...that's just me. If I were an actor, I'd be one of those people who never watches their own work. I feel exposed, and it makes me uncomfortable.

Nevertheless, to spare their feelings, we agreed to be in the commercial. We just saw a pre-final cut of it yesterday, and it's genuinely awful...really bad. And that's not even our part (which turns out to be the least offensive of the lot). It's the whole thing...it's just bad.

So now, we're in this really awful commercial, and it's going to run on national television, and I hope to God no one I know sees it.

My friends asked us for suggestions on final edit. My husband fears that the one we asked for will hurt their feelings. I wanted them to use our first names only....no surnames. Besides it being unneccessary to use them, no one ever asked our permission, and I had no idea they would plaster our names across the screen. That's just a little too much exposure for me. Someone may recognize my face but won't be sure it's me, unless of course my name is also in their face. So, please, remove it. It's not necessary. My husband thinks we probably hurt their feelings by asking for that, but I pointed out that by now, they know I don't like exposure, so it's in line with my general views, and not a commentary on the commercial itself.

So my initial instinct to not appear in this thing was spot on. Now I'm on TV...bad TV. I'm going to be the idiot on bad TV that some boxer-adorned insomniac is watching while eating leftover Chinese noodles in front of the TV in the the middle of the night. Lovely. Just lovely.