If you’re like me you have given some thought to all those Viagra and Cialis commercials out there, and likely that thought is how long you will have to get along without your TV  after you throw a table lamp through it because you just channel surfed to the fourth Viagra or Cialis commercial in five minutes.  Why in the world are these drug companies so obsessed with erectile dysfunction?   Can’t they move on for Pete sakes?  Thanks to them the whole world knows about ED (not to be confused with VD).  But they have saturated the awareness level by now, don’t you think?   There seems to be a lot of pressure on their creative departments to come up with something new to hard sell their products.  At first there were reasonably informative commercials, like the one featuring Bob Dole.  Imagine any politician, even a retired one, admitting to anything remotely embarrassing.  Then along came some semi-inoccuous videos, but they stretched the limits of even the most credulous.  What is the deal with all the bath tubs anyway?   We see an apparent cialitized guy and his partner sitting in separate bath tubs all over the place- at the beach, their home, and I’m not sure if the implication isn’t claiming cialis can make your income grow as well as your shlong, because there is one commercial where these two are sitting in their bath tubs watching the sunset from what appears to be their vacation home.  It could be the manufacturer is attempting to seed the subliminal message that you might be in for sticker shock and only those who can afford a vacation home will have enough reserve cash to purchase their expensive drug.  I have so many questions about those bath tubs.  Will Cialis somehow give me the almost superhuman strength to drag two bathtubs from my bathrooms to my patio and back again?  I have to haul one of them up a very long flight of stairs.  Just the thought of all the disassembly and reassembly of  the plumbing gives me a headache.  Will Cialis get rid of my headaches?  I gotta tell you if Cialis will improve my plumbing skills I might consider paying thirty bucks a tablet.  Every time I tackle a plumbing project, it turns into a disaster.  I usually end up tearing out a section of drywall in order to fix the problem I created when I attempted the initial repair.  Shit I hate that.  Maybe the people in the videos just travel around with two extra bathtubs wherever they go.  I guess that makes more sense.  But what if they fly overseas?  Seems to me the air freight would be exorbitant.  Then again, I guess these guys can afford it if they can afford a vacation home.  And Cialis.

Then there’s a set of similar commercials that are all about a guy who has “reached the age.”  I don’t know if the term “middle age” is offensive to a large group of people, but the pharmaceutical industry must think so, because they seem to want to dodge the issue by replacing it with several more complimentary labels, like, but not limited to, the age of never backing down from a challenge, the age of knowing how to make things happen, the age of knowing a thing or two, and the age of knowing what you’re made of.  I am not sure anymore exactly where I fall in these age brackets, but I’d like to think by now I do know a thing or two.  What I have learned is these fucking commercials are offensive and an assault on privacy.  I’m tired of dodging questions my eight year old granddaughter asks me about Viagra, typically on Sunday before we head out to church.  She expects some clear thought about this shit from a retired pharmacist.  God damn it it’s not up to me to give her the old birds and bees lecture.  Her mother can step up and do that.  I shouldn’t be put in that position.

The latest round of Viagra commercials is really pressing the envelope of good taste though if you ask me.  What we now see are several commercials featuring a number of extremely attractive women who all strut about in various stages of suggestive apparel, seductively brushing hair and slipping  evocative phrases into their dialog.  The one with the gal exclaiming she would rather curl up with her man than a good book more than likely has many ladies in the viewing audience wondering if they shouldn’t set fire to their library cards.  I’d be curious to hear the age-related phrase Eli Lilly has for the stars of these productions.  The age of robbing the cradle comes to mind if their target audience is truly the average American middle aged man.  Typically these commercials are about the lure of sex and how it alters perception.  Is there supposed to be an underlying thought here that if a guy takes Viagra his partner will start to look like one of the hot babes in these commercials?  I know the drug can make you see blue, but that type of vision alteration seems like a stretch.

So, what’s the next step for the advertising arm of these drug companies  The only thing left I can think of is to blast full speed ahead into pornography.  Get ready to witness the penetration of the last frontier in the commercial television world boys.  If anyone can pull this off it’s the pharmaceutical industry.  The next series of ED commercials is going to provide bonerfied pandemonium in us guys dwelling in the age of knowing what we’re made of.  No doubt staring at a fully unclothed vamp moaning and gyrating on your big screen TV set is going to have you recollecting about the age of knowing how to make things happen.   Keep looking at the screen and everything you need to solve this problem is effortlessly going to happen.  You won’t be needing any overpriced Viagra.  Just keep paying your cable bill.

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