Medicate Me

As previously noted, I don’t much care for TV commercials. I’ll change the channel, or mute the sound, but every now and again, the remote is just that far out of reach, and I am subjected to 45 seconds of vacant propaganda. Such was the case this past evening. The pitch was for some drug I’d never heard of, Eklastia, or something. I don’t even remember what it’s for. People who experience uncontrollable urges to break into Broadway show tunes or something.

But it’s the side effects that I don’t get. This particular one listed the following:

* Dry mouth
* Swollen feet
* Thoughts of mayhem
* Sweaty palms
* Blurred vision
* Uncontrollable bowel
* Urge to launch into diatribe against Nancy Grace to no one in particular
* Webbed fingers
* Tinnitus
* Delusions of grandeur, including but not limited to, thinking oneself to be a deposed Nigerian king
* Compulsive urge to count backwards from 1,182 by three’s
* Itchy scalp
* Excessive ebullience
* Unexplainable desire to walk up to complete strangers, pull them off to one side and whisper “They‘ve broken the code. Revert to the alphabet soup encryption scheme immediately. Pass it on.”
* Hallucinogenic visions involving gigantic amphibians and flying pizza boxes
* Uncontrollable urge to break into Broadway show tunes

Oh yeah, where do I sign up for that? I can’t believe people take this stuff voluntarily.

On that note, if one more E.D. commercial instructs me to “ask my doctor if I’m healthy enough for sex”, I will actually do it. I’m serious. I anticipate the conversation will go something like this:

“Listen, doc, sorry to bother you, but I have a feeling one of those ‘special moments’ is on the horizon. Yeah. Tonight, probably. Or maybe, I don’t know. Because she kind of brushed up against me in the hallway, and then she gave me this look. Whadaya mean, “describe the look?“ It was- a look. Wearing? I don’t know what she was wearing. Anyway, I was just wondering if I was healthy enough for sex. I’m not? Why? Okay, but other than that? Really? Are you sure? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? It could? Yeah, but, what are the odds? Seriously, that high?”

On second thought, I’m going to pass on asking the doctor. Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.