If you live in the Denver area, own a TV and have turned it on in the last few months, you can't have helped but to notice that Marks-Lloyds Furs is having a sale!!!!! It seems appropriate to add all those exclamations for marketing purposes, don't you think?

We've been bombarded with the campaign since the pre-holiday sales, all the way through the actual holiday, and now, they are wrapping up with the end of season 'clearance' sale (you've got to love the chutzpah of any company that calls these prices 'clearance'...they must hang out with car dealers). I suppose, after this, it's the 'Put Your Furs in Storage While You're in The Bahamas Sale'.

Now, now, I'm not being petty here-or even judgmental. Honestly. While the last time anyone I knew strutted a full length mink or even something short and foxy Reagan was in office, I do appreciate a beautiful fur, and I don't really have anti-fur scruples, though I do have humane treatment of animals scruples. Still, I think there should be a happy medium that allows a woman to wrap herself up in something this luxurious if she desires it, and can afford it. Most likely I'm just running in the wrong circles.

Nevertheless, wouldn't those who are into the fluffy stuff love to have one? That's why I've become fascinated with these ads, since the model they've swathed in all manner of creature's coats seems distinctly unhappy about it. It's gotten to the point where I just can't watch the ads without laughing. Truly, ask my family; I'm sure I'm annoying!

I use each ad as a new opportunity to stretch my storytelling skills, imagining a plethora of scenarios that would make her this unhappy. They've done wacky things with her hair-perhaps she's having an allergic reaction to the hair products, or neck pain from supporting that ridiculous up-do. Several shots have her sporting thigh skimming skirts and gold lame tights. That would make me mad, too.

Maybe it's not the furs, maybe it's the photographer. Perhaps they're former lovers, who ended badly one rainy night in Paris. Bitter words were spoken beneath the Arc de Triomphe, and she swore to herself, as he walked away down the Champs-Élysées, leaving her, and her lynx stoller, drenched and lifeless, that as God was her witness, she would never wear fur or work with him again. And now, with the Democrats in office, it's come to this.

Not buying it? How about this one... PETA finally figured out that throwing blood, fake or real, wasn't going to discourage women who can afford bodyguards and restraining orders from wearing whatever they want. So they placed a spy, posing as a fur model, whose job it is to make wearing fur look like the most unappealing, depressing thing in the world. It seems they've finally figured out something that might actually work!