WE'LL BE BACK

Right After These Messages.

It appears as if the US has turned into a nation of hypochondriacs given the numerous advertisements for drugs on television. Sure you used to get the old standbys like I can’t believe I ate the whole thing for a little something to provide stomach acid relief, or an advert for aspirin for the day after the drinking binge headache, all over the counter remedies for those irksome, yet relatively mundane, common ailments. Now the drug companies are advertising serious drugs for more serious diseases, drugs that are only available on prescription from a doctor. There are three things I find really interesting about this, first the ads are no longer overtly amusing, secondly they scare the bejesus out of you with a list of possible side effects and thirdly so few people here have health insurance, one wonders who can afford to pay for these drugs.

One of my favourite adverts is for a drug aimed at men with diabetes. Apparently either the illness, or the drugs one takes to sort that out, can cause ED, yes that’s what the bloke in the ad ingenuously calls it. ED my dears is the dreaded Erectile Dysfunction, so if that’s the correct way to describe a limp dick would Erectile Function be the correct way to describe a hard one? It could be the new foreplay in today’s politically correct America, Hey honey I’ve got EF, get ‘em off.

Sorry, I digress. So this drug purports to sort out that very problem and sure enough there’s the bloke in the ad with his lovely wife who just can’t get that satisfied smile off her face. So far so good, but then the disembodied voice starts to recite the list of possible side effects and contraindications. Now if I were a bloke and I heard all the nasty stuff that could happen if I took this drug I’d be all like, My old lady can just take matters into her own hands ‘cause I ain’t goin’ anywhere near that nasty shit. Then I hear the last possible side effect, as the voice gravely intones If you have an erection that lasts more than four hours contact your doctor, and I think, Wow this stuff is the business. I mean, I’m not a bloke but from all I’ve heard most blokes would kill for that sort of endurance.

So I watch these adverts and I wonder who can afford these drugs? I haven’t had to buy more than some ibuprofen here so I don’t know what the cost of prescription drugs are but I’m guessin’ they are outrageously high. This would be somewhat of an educated guess based on a documentary I watched when I was still in London, about a group of US senior citizens from a retirement home who arrange to be bussed over the border to Canada to get their scripts filled as it is so much cheaper there, even with the cost of travel factored in. I recently overheard a pharmacist, in a local drug store (yes boys n’ girls, in America they call Chemist shops, drug stores and what a lovely image that conjures up for those of us who had some fun in the sixties and other decades for that matter), talking to a colleague about someone who had rung concerning their drug needs. Yes, he said, she’s coming in and then added in a very dismissive and disdainful tone of voice but she’s got no insurance. It was like hearing someone being condemned to death, no reprieve, no hope.

To be fair, one can get cheap drugs in the UK through the NHS, the only drawback is that if one is seriously ill, it will take so long to see a specialist that by the time one gets the script for the drugs its often too late.

Speaking of messages, now for a laugh, at my expense. When I lived in Kinsail, Ireland Tom, my late husband, and I used to go to the small local supermarket. I was absolutely mystified by a sign at the till, which read If you want your messages taken to your car, please ask the clerk. I thought about this till it maddened me, I knew most people didn’t have telephones but I just couldn’t figure out why, if they got their phone messages at the supermarket (why not, we used to get ours at the local pub), they would need them taken to their car. I finally gave up and asked Tom who had a good laugh as he explained to me that the groceries were called messages. Why, you ask? This comes from people sending someone to the store with a grocery list, or message. Doh!

Check out the link to my poetry blog, top right side of page. Sarah Kobrinsky and I have been writing poetry together, I’ve posted our first two Naked and The Dead collaborations.