"What does?" asked Geoff, looking up from his book.

"When the networks run enticing teasers to get you to keep watching, then when you finally see the bit they've been teasing about, it's a total let down. Something obnoxiously obvious or a five-second clip or nothing even remotely close to what they were pretending it was."

He shoved his glasses back up his nose. "For instance?" he asked.

"For the last hour, they've been teasing about this couple that's been married longer than anyone else. They kept showing them and asking, "What's the secret to making a marriage last 85 years?"

"Don't get divorced?" Geoff offered.

"Besides that," I said, shooting him a look.

"They're just doing their job," he said. "Trying to keep people from changing the channel. On the radio today, right before a commercial break, they asked, "What causes hot water to freeze faster than cold water?"

"And I bet they didn't answer that until the very end of the show."

It bothers me that I'm exactly the kind of person who makes teasers so effective. I absolutely have to know.

If something causes me to miss the end of a show, I'll spend much of the next day harassing co-workers (and the occasional stranger) trying to find out what happened. Once I start a book or a movie - no matter how bad it might be - I have to see how it ends. If a network teases a show by saying one of the main characters is going to get killed, my curiosity forces me to tune in.

But that doesn't mean I don't get upset when what they've been teasing falls short of the bait.

"Coming up: Your car seat could be putting your child at death's door!"

The show's big revelation - you have to buckle the seat in.

"Coming up: Learn the one small change that will add years to your life and reduce inches from your waist!"

That one small change? Exercise more.

For days, NBC teased that Detective Stabler of Law & Order SVU would be losing his eyesight in that week's episode. Turns out his vision was temporarily blurry.

I felt duped.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not wishing ill on Detective Stabler's character. Just the people who promo the show.

Newspapers seldom stoop that low. Sure, we might occasionally promote a story scheduled for the weekend edition or try to lure readers to our Web sites with promises of more details or photos, but it's not a regular thing. And it's certainly not something a columnist would attempt, in the hopes of getting readers to follow the story as it hops to another page.

We simply have too much respect for our audience to attempt something like that.

For instance, I'm certain that most, if not all, of those reading this column already know the answer to that trivia question I mentioned. Hot water actually doesn't always freeze faster than cold, but can under certain circumstances (like if the water is extremely hot, a good bit will evaporate, leaving less water to freeze).

And most, if not all, of you reading this column already know the secret to having a marriage last 85 years.

Don't die.

Karin Fuller can be reached via e-mail at karinful...@cnpapers.com. Her columns can be accessed through her blog at thegazz.com.