There's perky Kiran Chetry, with her dazzling smile and Chiclets teeth.
But there's so much other stuff on the screen vying for your attention that the anchors move in and out of your consciousness.
The other day, around the 15-minute mark on the treadmill death-march, I found myself staring at Chetry's teeth.
How does she keep them so white and sparkly? I wondered.
Do her teeth get scraped and sand-blasted and polished every morning until they glisten like a row of pearls?
But then ... an item in the crawl caught my attention.
"Scientists tracking an asteroid approaching Mars," it said.
And suddenly you couldn't worry about Chetry's teeth, not with a rogue asteroid careering around the galaxy.
Then here was Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, reporting on "Overeating and Your Brain."
"The brain cells are saying, `Stop! Stop! We're full!'" Dr. Gupta cried at one point.
But then the temperature in Boston was posted, and the crawl was giving an update on the deadly conditions on Florida's I-4, so I stopped paying attention to the good doctor. Although I noticed he had nice teeth, too.
Then the death march on the treadmill was over.
Maybe tomorrow they'll have the big plasma TV tuned to ESPN.
It's a lot less stressful all around.
kevin.cowherd@baltsun.com
