Driven Insane by Zero.

I can't take it anymore. Toyota's "Saved By Zero" TV spot is excruciating. It's not the visuals. It's the damned jingle. It's worse than obnoxious. It's horribly, excruciatingly hummable.

And it's etched itself into my brain. It bounces off the walls of my skull like a fart echoing through an empty opera hall. Robert Schumann, driven insane from an untreated case of syphillis, heard the same A-note over and over in his head before he died. Well this is many, many a terrible notes together. And I'm heading to the clock tower.

What's worse, now I'm singing it. It's involuntary. Sitting at my desk typing out the next great American ad, and I'm singing it. In the restroom, I'm singing it. In my car, I'm singing it. Like a Charles Manson chant, but instead of people, they're slashing interest rates.

My god, I don't even sing the right lyrics anymore. I simply insert whatever I'm doing or thinking at that moment into the song. And then I sing it. Saved by butt cracks. Saved by note pads. Saved by dress slacks. I can't even look at my son without sticking his name into it. My son.

My god.

There is no more me. There is only zero. And I've been saved by it against my will. Short of doing a cannon ball off the roof of my neighbor's garage onto a fencepost, I can't think of anything that will snap it.

Except maybe buying a Ford.