Like many other seniors, I'm somewhat reluctant to visit my physician. But once there, I really enjoy the upscale atmosphere of the doc's waiting room. It's loaded with ultra-modern furniture, healthy artificial plants, and rich people's magazines. The ambiance is further enhanced by the lovely sales ladies who always get in to see the doc ahead of me so they can promote their respective pills. Oddly enough, none of those gals seem to be older than 30; must be their lucrative profession allows them to retire early.
When I finally do get in to see the doc, he inevitably hands me one or two illegible prescription slips. As I was trying to read one, it occurred to me that physicians ought to handle secret communications for the military. Between the dead language the docs use and their illegible writing, no enemy could ever decipher the code.
Well, now I'm on my way to the pharmacy, which is not the drugstore of yesteryear. The musty pharmacy in my town's old Rexall drugstore emitted a potent medicinal fragrance. Just one whiff would put me on the road to good health. Plus, I always enjoyed my butterscotch sundae at the soda fountain while my prescription was being filled, not to mention a friendly chat with the soda jerk.
These days, my daughter takes me to a drive-thru pharmacy in her huge van. There's usually a line of cars ahead of us, but she keeps the motor running so my grandkids in the back can enjoy video games and movies on the van's flat-screen TVs. I had a real problem with that until she assured me that we wouldn't use up more than a gallon of gas while waiting for my medications.
The drive-thru experience got me to wondering, why not set up vending machines to dispense popular pills? That distribution method seems to work just fine for DVD movies and scratch-and-win game cards. My buddies even tell me that bathrooms in nightclubs and bus stations have vending machines that sell birth control paraphernalia to guys; isn't that stuff some kind of medical product?
After arriving home, I gather all my over-the-counter and prescribed pills. Then I begin the ritual of loading them into the honeycombed plastic case so they're ready for day-by-day consumption. Sometimes a few extra pills accidently get loaded into individual slots. I can't remove them because my big fingers won't fit into the tiny boxes; so some days I end up taking extra doses.
Those cordial doctors that appear in TV commercials make the whole pill experience seem so uplifting and wonderful. They're all beautiful people, and they speak with great conviction as they read the teleprompter. But then an anonymous voice suddenly chimes in with a litany of awful side effects. I'd rather not hear about violent gastrointestinal activity while I'm trying to enjoy chunky soup for lunch. And the warnings are a bit chilling too, "Notify your doctor immediately if you experience death while taking this medication."
On the other hand, some of the side effects are quite pleasant. One of my pills gives me wilder dreams than I get from my wife's thick mushroom gravy. In fact, those medicinally induced fantasies are even better than what I see on cable TV, and I get to star in most of them!
Speaking of stars, I never understood why elderly Hollywood actors are always in the middle of all this pharmaceutical advertising, encouraging me to get a reverse mortgage on my home. Well, it finally came into focus when my sinister health insurance company began modifying my policy after the fact. My co-payment for medications shot through the roof, and so did my temper.
Pharmaceutical companies intend to capitalize on my now foul disposition. Patents have expired on some of their pills, thereby turning those drugs into low profit generics. So, they're shifting from production of life-saving medications to producing the more profitable mood- enhancing drugs. That clever strategy makes me confident that all this will eventually have a happy ending.
In the meantime, I've resorted to purchasing my pills from overseas pharmacies via the Internet. At first I was worried about what I was getting, but then came the big surprise. The FDA declared one of my medications to be a worthless fake. Lo and behold it was the one that supposedly facilitated my four-hour amorous experiences. But that's all right; I'm actually feeling quite a bit younger now that I've tossed out those pricey pills.
Liburdi’s recently published book, "Italian American Fusion: Italy's Influence on the Evolution of America" is available at internet bookstores and on the Kindle e-reader.