Long after the credits roll, I stay curled in a cocoon of fuzzy blankets to await the main event: Infomercials. Every insomniac understands how these repetitive displays of consumerism easily become your best night time bud. The bright lights and even brighter smiles contrast deeply with your messy bun, pizza stained shirt and BBQ chip-coated fingertips. It's like looking into a world where all of the problems of the past several hours can be repealed with the purchase of whatever the hell it is its selling. In short, my love for them can be described with this "Futurama" quote: "All Hail Hypnotoad"!

All Hail the dream of buying our way into temporary happiness!

1. The narratives though!

I’m going to start with the O.G. of infomercials: The Magic Bullet. With a tag line of “Any job in 10 seconds or less”, how could you not physically glue your eyes to the TV? Firstly, Mick and Mimi are the hosts of an early morning get together of a ragtag gang of hungover adults with some boundary issues (seriously, who just walks through the back door at 8 am without knocking). They serve the absolute worst combination of foods ever which leads me to believe they secretly want to give their weird friends diarrhea. “Curry powder for everything,” Mimi sings with annoyance as she briefly considers divorcing her Indian spice addicted husband.

Alas, betrayal and addiction are hardly the most interesting part, they also have horrible concepts of space.

Mick opens a cupboard full of “big and clumsy” appliances and then compares it to the magic bullet, which is the size of a coffee cup. Gosh, that logic would work if you didn’t have 5 magic bullets, an ocean of magic bullet accessories and the contents of your fridge sprawled out on your counter tops, but yeah, sure, let’s talk about the toaster.

Then Hazel arrives. Now this an event. An older chain-smoking woman, who probably owns more cats than the state allows, randomly pops in with the question, “Did somebody say muffins”? Firstly, you came completely out of nowhere and are wearing a housecoat. Do you live with them? Secondly, Why are you the only one with a scratchy Brooklyn accent? Did you have to flee New York after testifying against a mob boss? Were you somehow accidentally placed with the weirdest witness protection hosts known to mankind? Oh Hazel. You mysterious muffin woman, you.

All of this and so SO much more wrapped neatly into a nightly infomercial. You can relive the same experience in your very own home for $99.99 or 3 easy payments of $33.33 (satisfaction pretty much not guaranteed).

I took the leap myself and sank to the bottom of watery broccoli soup hell and yet still, I am completely entranced with this soap opera of an infomercial.

You had me at “no time to cry”, Mimi, you had me right there and then.

2. They have mastered the art of camp.

You could tell me some meta mastermind artist was behind every infomercial and I will accept that story's efficacy. Who else would assemble a team of wide smiling Stepford Wives in a diamond shaped orgy of shake weight fitness? “Specifically designed for women”, you mean to say the plastic pulsating penis was specifically designed for women? Wow. Weird. It’s almost as if they stole that model from elsewhere (sick your lawyers on them, vibrating dildo companies)!

Only American Capitalism could create a product for women that emulates giving men pleasure to encourage losing weight! I refuse to believe that the shakeweight infomercial was anything other than an arthouse camp film analyzing American consumerism and female sexuality and subjugation. Then again it’s always 3 A.M. when these infomercials air so I’d take my critique with a very large grain of salt.

P.S. If it’s subliminal indoctrination they’re working with, do gay women ever buy Shake Weights?

3. Their ability to make you buy God awful products.

Do your beloved jeans get lost in the bottoms of your drawers because you just can’t seem to deal with that uncomfortable, but expected, jean feeling? Boy, do we have a revolutionary product for you!

Pajama Jeans: Jeans for people who lie to themselves about the quality of their clothing. Will I be duped into buying it? Maybe. Will I regret it two wears later when I realize I could’ve bought leggings? Definitely.

The point isn’t to get long term satisfaction, but to satiate a new craving for essential products I didn’t know were necessary! Thank God, for all these smiling robots telling me to “buy. buy! BUY!”

Thank you, smiling robots!

4. They create Icons!

"Hi! Billy Mays here!"

If you didn’t read that sentence in his voice, you need to sit down and get educated.

This American pitchman, nay, HERO, brought to us the Fix-it, Kaboom, Orange Glo and most famously, Oxi-Clean. He sold all of these products all with his blindingly white smile . . . which he may or may not have Oxi-cleaned!

His booming voice and rapid hand gestures lulled you into a certain sense of reassuring calmness. Why yes, Billy, I am disappointed with the state of my laundry. Only one scoop of Oxi-clean to a full load of laundry? Golly, I too can make my whites whiter! (insert obligatory congress joke here)

Whatever there was to sell, Billy was out there working the grind to sell it to you, his loyal consumer. I wish I could say "But wait! There's more!" but unfortunately, this legend ascended to the infomercial set in the sky in 2009 at the age of 50.

I clean my laundry for you now, Billy. I do it for you.

5. Glorious bad acting and legendary fails.

The shrill screams, the overzealous grabbing of popcorn bowls, and the aggressive crushing of eggs that get nowhere near their destination; I just can’t get enough of this bad acting! A part of me sincerely hopes that there is an actual person out there who can’t use saran wrap without tangling the entire box but it’s the part of me that knows I’m very much like them.

I, Lauren Gray, am a tiny Godzilla person. I break door handles, railings, phones, computers, plates, ceramic bowls and just about every disposable straw in those stupid paper wrappings (why do they bend so easily?). By this point my catchphrase is basically, “Lauren” with a disapproving nod. I once threw my bowling ball into the next lane over, which coincidentally was a pretty vibrant party that came to a screeching halt when I most definitely gave them a gutter ball for a gift. Thankfully, they laughed it off while my dad solemnly shook his low hung head with a simple, "Lauren".

I like these fails because I am these fails. Okay, I’m not “wrestling around with an ironing board” fail but I am most definitely “sticks finger into boiling hot water to test the temperature” fail. That is right up my burned, bruised and maimed alley. I’m not even complaining about it. Worse things have happened!

I get a good laugh out of the fails in these infomercials and frankly, people get a good laugh out of me! There's nothing wrong with a little laughter, right?