I was watching television the other morning and saw a commercial for one of the local car dealers. You know the one. The commercial with the overzealous voice-over offering deals that are once in a lifetime, but seem to occur every month. The commercial with the faux rock music that sounds like the soundtrack from a low-budget 1980s action movie.

There were a lot of animated explosions and lightning bolts and abundant alliteration from absolutely authoritative announcers. The 30-second advertisement was supposed to be the attention-getter. I was supposed to remember the name of the dealership, and the brand and model of the cars and know right then and there, over my coffee and toast, exactly which automobile I needed.

That was not the case. Wasn’t even close, not by a country mile. It was what I heard near the conclusion of the commercial that captured my attention.

The 2016 (insert car name here) featuring 4G Wi­-Fi!

To quote my 15-year-old daughter, “Wait…..what?”

The 2016 Oldsmobuick features Wi-Fi. I will use the term Oldsmobuick from this point forward to save the publishers of this newspaper from being sued by the actual manufacturer. The automobile, while being touted as a mid­-sized sedan, perfect for a small family, features an option that encourages distracted driving.

I cannot think of a better option for a commuter car than Internet access. This way, I can beg all my friends for Candy Crush lives while hurtling along at 70 mph. I can update my Facebook status, tweet my friends, send a Snapchat and binge-watch “Orange Is The New Black” on Netflix while driving to work.

Most of us can remember when a lot of the things we have in our cars now as standard equipment were luxuries. My mother had a car in the early ’80s where the back seat was an option. FM radio used to be something you got in nicer cars.

I can remember the days before cruise control was standard in every car. Our idea of cruise control was hoping your foot didn’t get tired on the pedal during road trips.

My wife is younger than I. She uses cruise control in her car. She asked me if the cruise control in my car worked, and I told her I didn’t really know. I had never used it.

I once paid $300 to have the window motors in my car replaced after they had died. You never had that problem with crank windows. Power steering and brakes were once options. My wife’s late grandmother had an AMC Hornet with power steering, but the brakes you had to stand on to operate.

We borrowed the car once and my then-20-something-year-old wife was dumbfounded at how her 90-year-old grandmother could stop the car on a dime. The brake pedal of the 1973 AMC Hornet required six men of reasonable strength to operate.

There was a time when the airbag was a thing of the future. There were a handful of cars in the 1970s with them, but the airbags seemed futuristic, ridiculous and goofy. Now, there are cars with so many airbags in them the driver could hurl himself into the Grand Canyon and step from his car with little more than mussed hair and scuffed shoes.

I was in a collision once with a Subaru. I bumped my head and my knees, spilled my coffee and was quite shaken. The driver of the Subaru got out like a child at a bounce house at a backyard birthday party to ask if I was OK.

There are now more cameras on cars than there are at Fort Knox. The radio/CD player has been replaced with a communication center that accesses the radio stations, the Internet, GPS, weather and traffic conditions and the engine and systems status of the car.

My car has an aftermarket stereo, a stack of compact discs in the center console, two cup holders and a dog-­eared road atlas in the door pocket because I never updated the maps in my portable GPS. I don’t need or want the HAL 9000 telling me where to turn and when I need gas.

My wife and I both have high-mileage cars. It is getting to the time when her 15-year-old minivan and my 12-year-old economy car will need to be replaced. I imagine we will have to make the trip to the dealership and begin the search for a car that will replace one of the ones we have.

I don’t really care if it has Wi-Fi or GPS built in. I just hope it makes my coffee the way I like it.

Baltimore native Joe Weaver is a husband, father, pawnbroker and gun collector. From his home in New Bern, he writes on the lighter side of family life.

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Joe Weaver

Contributing Columnist