Here’s some stuff that makes me scratch my head.

Why do prescription drug TV commercials always show the medicated actor ridiculously happy while we hear about horrific side effects? One in particular treats plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and Crohn’s disease. As the woman in the commercial smiles and enjoys outdoor activities on a brilliant sunny day, the narrator says she might experience fainting, swelling of the face, eyelids, lips and mouth, trouble breathing, skin rashes, infections, fever, cough, mucus, muscle aches, painful skin, body sores, diarrhea, burning urination, liver problems, back pain and severe headaches.

While this prescription drug treats three problems, it can cause 19 others. Other pills can actually cause death. Why do we have to play Russian roulette with our prescriptions? The scary thing is the FDA says 1 in a 50 will experience a side effect. C’mon, man! When I see those odds, I see me as the 1 in the 50!

Why do new car TV commercials show the vehicle being driven through ocean surf, down untraveled forest trails, up a snow-covered mountain, across a desert and then under a waterfall? In real life driving, nobody drives in any of these places. We drive upon paved streets, busy highways, and inside endless traffic jams. How about the TV commercial that has the driver parking the vehicle right in front of a major concert hall with no other cars around it. I mean, c’mon man! Sometimes, I have to park three blocks away when I go to the Mauch Chunk Opera House.

Speaking of vehicles, is it only me who feels that driving at night is a near blinding experience due to these LED headlights that are brighter than halogen high beams? I drive down the road and coming the other way is a line of cars and trucks with these bright headlights that shoot through my windshield and for just a second or two, I can’t see the road ahead of me. Throw in some drizzling rain on a night drive and the LEDs come at your eyes like 100 blurry flood lamps. I mean, c’mon, man! I’m happy the other driver can see 90 miles ahead of him, but the rest of us coming the other way are gripping our steering wheels, trying not to drive into the trees.

Do retired people ever wonder how important their mortality is to the programs that pay them pensions, Social Security, and life insurance? Let’s say you choose to take your full pension in monthly amounts and not leave any money to a beneficiary after you die. Many public and private pension programs are at risk of going broke so to help keep them solvent, we can help these programs by doing one thing. Die. That ends our lifetime payments and allows more money in the system for someone else to receive the benefit. The same goes with Social Security which is also at risk of going bankrupt. We die and that stops our payments and frees up the money we were supposed to keep getting for somebody else.

Contrary to pension and Social Security programs, term life insurance companies want us to stay alive until the policy expires so our beneficiaries get nothing and the company gets to keep all the premiums that we’ve been paying for the past 20 years. We get penalized for staying alive but our loves ones get more than $100,000 if we should die during the active time of the policy. Yay, dad is alive! Boo, we don’t get a cent. C’mon, man!

The big lottery programs will pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to one winner. They give that much money away when our country is in serious debt and homeless people have no food to eat or places to live. On the local level, I hear the spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Lottery say, “The PA lottery benefits older Pennsylvanians every day.” C’mon, man! Do they not have my address?

What’s with these TV ads that show sandwiches with so much meat packed inside that the bread can barely hold it all and when you go and buy that sandwich, it looks like somebody sat on top of it. The meat is barely visible and the roll is 90 percent closed. The same goes for fast food hamburgers. On TV, the top and bottom of the bun look to be about 6 inches apart because of all the meat, cheese and other ingredients, but at the place, you buy the burger and all that you see between the bun is piece of lettuce sticking out. C’mon, man! I want to eat what I see in the picture.

Here’s my last gripe for now. Why do we still have daylights saving time? One reason is to move an hour of sunlight to the evening. Another reason is to persuade people to get out of bed earlier. A third reason is more daylight saves energy, reduces traffic crashes, and helps us become more active. C’mon, man! It’s winter. It’s still dark in the early morning and gets dark again at 5 p.m. and most days, we never see the sun. As far as saving energy, my electric bill was nearly $400 last month.

Daylight savings is to help us be more active in the winter. C’mon, man! Yesterday I walked from the couch to the kitchen to the bathroom, and then back to the couch. Does that count?

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com