Rare are the instances on commercial television that genuinely disturb me. I find most of the rubbish paraded about television to be more disappointing. I am disappointed that programs like "My So Called Life" and "Freaks and Geeks" are cancelled while "That 70’s Show" and "Kristen" skitter about the dark corners of broadcasting like post-apocalyptic cockroaches. I am disappointed that people still allow their spouses to drag them on the Jerry Springer show without getting an explanation before they come on stage to meet their mates’ drug addled 300 pound lover. I am disappointed that Trix are still just for kids. Give the poor rabbit a break, he’s been trying for well over a decade now. That should account for something. These things dishearten but do not disturb.

Last week I was squandering my vacation time in front of the television as I am wont to do, when I was suddenly faced with a screen full of tan abdomen swaying and bouncing to a jaunty guitar jingle. Narrow margins of a pink, festooned midriff and faded jeans framed the toned, feminine belly. The singing then started. It was a cover of Diana Ross’s "I’m Coming Out" crooned by the unexceptional voice of Jamie-Lynn Sigler of HBO’s the Sopranos (ah, the irony). After a couple of confusing seconds it became horrifyingly apparent that the belly button was doing the lip-synching.

I sat at the kitchen counter, cinnamon roll in hand, aghast at this disquieting personification. The camera panned across a crowd and focused on another young stomach peeking from under a midriff. This naval belted out the next lyric which was in turn picked up by another naval and so on through a swaggering pageant of flat stomachs with a penchant for performance.

Images were running through my head of high school assemblies featuring the painted torsos of the football team —nipples for eyes, a crudely drawn nose, and a belly button as a pair of pursed lips undulating to "Whistle While You Work." I thought back to a boy in my sixth grade class whose belly button hadn’t been tied correctly and so it occasionally filled with digested food, protruding inches from his brown belly like a rolled tongue. This reminded me of the original purpose of the naval as an intake for food before it was severed, knotted, and poked into the body like a punching balloon.

The singing belly buttons started to take on the menace of vagina dentata. If they could sing, could they not eat, would they not have teeth? I forgot that this commercial was intended to pitch a product because all it was selling me was fear. The same fear that is evident on the little boy’s wide-eyed face in the middle of the commercial as he watches the alien breed of belly’s belt out the jingle. It wasn’t until the very end of the ad that the Levi’s logo appeared with the adjacent words "superlow jeans" while a woman’s sultry voice read them for emphasis.

After this I have seen the ad a few more times and have tried to see the jeans advertised. Most of the time only a couple of copper rivets and the top button can be seen or a few belt loops over a super thick belt. The only "long" look at the jeans that is given is at the end and even then the camera blurs the image as the woman walks away. If these jeans were in a line-up with a pair of Brittanica slacks I wouldn’t be able to tell which were in the ad. However if the bellies were lined up I could tell you which were in the commercial and exactly what lines they sang. That kind of horror stays with you.

Revised since its debut on Steve McQueen’s Head