Watching dancing stalks of broccoli on television won’t convince me to buy that bag of frozen vegetables at the grocery store, nor will women dressed in clothing I will never be able to afford con me into shopping at Saks 5th Avenue.

But ad agencies and their gullible clients believe Americans will buy (or buy into) anything they see on television.

Thank goodness for my DVR. I watch shows only after I have taped them so I can fast-forward through the inane commercials that product owners believe will sway me to purchase their items.

Ad execs must think the buying public is a horde of idiots who will laugh at the antics of talking dogs (well, OK, I do laugh at some of those), or that consumers buy into cereal boxes bursting into song.

Since when did you wake up in the morning to a bright, sunny day and coffee was already brewed, and a breakfast of bacon and eggs already was waiting for you?

Not me. I drag myself out of bed each morning after slapping the extra five-minute snooze button on the alarm clock a couple of times, stumble to the shower, get dressed and pray the clothes match, and leave the house with no coffee and a stale bagel in my purse.

That’s how I believe most Americans face the early-morning hours, no matter what television commercials tell you the morning should look like.

When my kids were in school, I varied my routine slightly. It went like this: I dragged myself out of bed each morning after slapping the extra five-minute snooze button on the alarm clock a couple of times, stumbled to the shower, got dressed and prayed the clothes matched, and left the house with no coffee but two kids in tow, each with a stale bagel in their hands.

Sometimes they were fortunate to get a bowl of cereal before they were dragged away from morning cartoons and out the door.

Those families on TV are an exaggeration of mornings for “real people” who have school-age children in the house. Lunches packed with smiley-faces cut out of bread, homemade cake slices wrapped in waxed paper, and Thermos bottles full of hot soup are the stuff television legends are made of.

Maybe that was the norm for stay-at-home moms of the 1950s and ’60s who woke before the crack of dawn to prepare for the day before waking their loving husband and 2.5 children.

But this is the 21st century, and not many moms have the luxury of staying home with their families any more. For most homes it takes two incomes to make ends meet, and more kids are being left to their own devices to get ready for school.

My kids always considered themselves lucky if I remembered to wash jeans the night before, give them lunch money in the morning, and sign their homework before they were hustled out the door on their way to school.

Yep, a stale bagel was a luxury even back then. Boy, do I miss those days.

Lisa Carnley is managing editor of the Lampasas Dispatch Record.