Thank God It's Friday
BC PIRES
MY WIFE bought me these excellent memory-improvement tablets; of course I keep forgetting to take them, indeed, have actually taken to throwing them away (making up in deviousness whatever I'm losing in recollection) so she won't notice that the level of pills is not being depleted. One way or the other, though, the bottle and the game will soon be up; but I do have what I think would be a foolproof excuse: I forgot.
By a tangentially linked process - I wouldn't say I remembered them - the memory pills got me thinking about those prescription drug TV ads in the most expensive primetime advertising slots.
The problems prescription drugs address may be very serious but their advertisements are hilarious, or would be if people didn't go directly to their doctors and ask if the drug advertised was right for them.
They're clearly persuaded by the supposed benefits actors paid to pretend to be well get from swallowing the pills concerned, but it's just as clear that no one really listens to the warnings at the end of the commercials, which pharmaceutical companies have to run to avoid lawsuits.
Would you voluntarily swallow something the manufacturer himself warned could cause swelling of the face, lips, tongue and throat, difficulty in breathing and swallowing, excessive bleeding, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, palpitations, thrombosis, atrial fibrillation and heart attack?
Gastro-intestinal side effects include nausea, stomach and/or rectal bleeding, constipation, diarrhoea, vomiting, chronic kidney failure, hepatitis, jaundice and more. General side effects include tiredness, weakness, hair loss, urinary tract infection, painful menstruation, heartburn, vaginitis, pancreatitis and hyperglycaemia. With side effects like those, you're better off staying ill.
But pharmaceutical companies saved the really good side-effects stuff for your head, where their drugs may cause headache, amnesia (so much for memory pills), seizures, speech disorder, stroke, increased aggression, agitation, anxiety, confusion, depression, hallucinations, hyperactivity, irritability, panic, sleeplessness, overexcitement, hostility and, in rare cases, suicide.
Most ads warn that pregnant women should not use the product and at least one I've seen warns against possibly fatal spontaneous bleeding. What kind of firetrucking medicine is that? They actually say this stuff in their ads (though very fast, like a dancehall LP played on 45 rpm). If they listened closely, no one in their right mind would take these things (but, of course, many who do, aren't).
So, conscientious public servant that I am, I've come up with a superior alternative. Instead of those fancy, deliberately misleading names pharmaceutical companies pay advertising agencies millions to make up for them, instead of Sukitup or F-kitall or Wonderbra or I'll Leave Heras-, here's my far safer, familiar, monosyllabic alternative, which I would have voiced over video of a miserable office worker sitting unhappily at hi
