The Grating Gecko

In March, the New York Times reported that the Geico Corporation was planning to run a new ad campaign on behalf of its insurance company with its unusually ubiquitous, increasingly talkative and remarkably bothersome gecko who is now slated to be traveling across America.

The little green lizard from Australia has for the past several years gradually turned into a major annoyance. Its slimy presence, its grating voice, and its so-called "humorous" natterings are less and less engaging and more and more enraging.

For me, it has gotten personal. Now when I hear the whiny, high-pitched, fake-humble vocalizing of that critter, I shut off the radio, change the channel, banish the image, and get out of the room.

The Geico gecko has, in fact, altered my soul in three significant ways: it has made the Australian twang, which I once delighted in hearing, into a sound of profound irritation; it has transformed a once cute gecko into a repellant rodent that I would like to squash on contact; and it has convinced me never to buy Geico insurance even if the company gives it to me for free.

What in the world was the invincible Warren Buffet thinking when he decided to purchase this company, with its ridiculous advertising budget that last year amounted to three-quarters of a billion dollars and with its ludicrous other schemes to attract buyers using (aside from the lizard) fake cavemen playing golf and tennis, and an anthropomorphic pig that relishes car and luge rides.

Please, Warren, do us all a favor and dump your creative team. Get somebody new. Enough already.