So Let Me Get This Straight!

With the endless stream of prescription drug advertisements bombarding our televisions every day and night, it is difficult not to notice some of them.  Well, here is one that caught my attention, a commercial that leads off by showing a carrot that is bent at about a 20-degree angle at its end. It piqued my curiosity a little as there could be no doubt about what part of the body the carrot represented. I was certain that the carrot was not meant to portray a nose unless Cyrano de Bergerac is back in town. 

So, there is this affliction called Pyrone’s disease and it causes the male (you know) unit to bend somewhat precariously upward (maybe downward too, I am not sure).  I am going to be serious here for a moment, this condition sounds painful.  This is no laughing matter and just the thought of it causes tender trepidation.  But leave it to a corporate pharmaceutical company to try and turn this problem into a fairy tale.

 First of all, the use of fucking vegetables, a man stands and examines a cucumber (wishful thinking), then the announcer states that no two men are built alike while several shapes and sizes of peppers, cucumbers, and bananas adorn the screen with phallic wonderment. Image the poor bastard who has the mini pepper.  Is this supposed to represent his secret garden?  It does give a whole new meaning to being a vegetarian.

Then there is another commercial, this time with a pile of carrots prominently displaying a bent carrot on top of the heap.  An actress portraying the wife looks at the man next to her as if to say, “you are not using that on me” and walks away.  The dumbfounded husband picks up the bent carrot with a puzzled look of “that’s what mine looks like”?  The poor man’s only enjoyment tonight will be carrots in his salad.

Then comes the part explaining how the drug works.  First, they explain the side effects which include “penile fracturing”, wholly shit, that can’t be worth the benefit!  Then you couple the treatment with “daily penile stretching and straitening”, who the fuck does this, a physical therapist?  With my luck, I would draw the PT who looks like an old Soviet dock worker. Or is this self-treatment and they send you a magazine with each prescription.  Man, that has to be a blast having the pharmacist ask which porn mag you want as they hand you your pills.  However, and adding insult to injury (quite literally) the drug is administered by injection at the site.  Piss sakes (pun intended)!

There are alternatives to help cure this problem including a traction device.  So, now you can put your penis in traction!  How do you go out into public with this device?  Do you tie a sling around it to conceal the traction device?  You would have to wear dress-length shirts for sure.  I guess you could put your crotch in a cast and have it signed by your friends. 

Look, this is a very serious condition that has to be painful.  And it must certainly be noted here that women go through a lot of conditions with their lady parts and sometimes the ads for those problems are just as ridiculous.  I have a sense of humor as good as anyone’s but sometimes the scripts written for drug commercials appear to reflect the dumbing down of America.  We are so uncomfortable talking about penile and other personal parts that we have to go out to the garden to find a suitable vegetable to illustrate the point. Using this logic, having the birds and bees talk with your kids could get pretty silly as you would have to use Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head as props. 

I feel that multi-billion-dollar drug companies are trying to exploit a personal issue through absurd flippancy.  Instead of using professionals to explain a serious issue, they try to turn the situation into a sitcom TV show with vegetables as props.  I am just wondering, is there a happy ending to this whole story? Uh-maybe.  As always, this is just my opinion.

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer

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