Oh, Oh, OOOHHH! The Healing Purple Pill

So I was planning on waiting a while before posting this particular gem. However, it turns out that Fireheart promised some folks at KC that it’d soon be up. This just means I will have to go back to actually writing new stuff sooner than I had planned. So with some revisions here it is:

Oh, Oh, OOOHHH! The Healing Purple Pill

How's this for an add campaign you are not likely to see any time soon: Our add opens with a man in his late 20's facing the camera. He has that look on his face that people get in TV adds. I am sure you know the face I am talking about. The “I am about to disclose highly personal information which I wouldn't tell my mother but I'll tell the national TV audience.” This face is then followed by a slightly melancholy description of their struggle with genital herpes/hemorrhoids/menstrual cramps/or the circumstances which lead to the purchase of adult diapers.

This is in fact an appropriate way to begin our hypothetical advertisement, as I wrote this essay originally while sitting at my mother's kitchen table. Like most of my essays, I suspect this is not something she probably should read.

So, back to our serious young man in the TV add. After a brief pause so that our hypothetical audience can take in the fact that this is a serious young man, he begins to speak.

“Acid reflux disease can cause discomfort or even pain. It also can wear away at the lining of your esophagus. What many people don't realize is that acid reflux disease can cause pain for those we love as well.” He is really looking serious now. “I never realized how badly acid reflux disease was wearing away at my relationship as well as my insides.” At this point we could have another attractive man walk into the frame and put his arm around the speaker's shoulders. This second man should probably be more masculine looking as well.

Our speaker continues “With acid reflux I was always in pain. Especially” his eyes flit downward “down there. After spending so much time in the bathroom, I didn't have the strength for our usually activities” a coy glance at young man number two.

At this point the speaker's eyes light up and looking straight at the camera he says cheerfully “Now, thanks to the ‘healing purple pill’™, my boyfriend can make love to me as long as he wants. Now we just have to make up for lost time.”

Ok, so I probably won't make it in the cutthroat world of advertising. Still, here is a way to get to the, um heart of the gay community. We queers have digestive problems too, but for us it is not just about getting to eat the food that we want.

Many of you know that I have a broken bone in my neck (the C-7 spinal process broke off as consequence of some of my tics). After I left college I had to seek out a new primary care doctor. The guy I found was friendly and understood some of my issues, but he did not get the Tourette and he did not get the neck thing. Now I realize I should have left to find someone else but I didn't. As my neck pain got worse he perscribed 2000mg of ibuprofen a day.

I come from a family with a history of digestive problems including the afore mentioned acid reflux (adding the word “disease” in adds seems to make the product sell better, but I think it's stupid). With the ibuprofen and a nasty set of stomach tics I had stomach acid problems pretty fucking bad. When I complained to the doctor he informed me that I had to choose between my neck and my stomach. Since I couldn't do the job I was in with my neck fucked up, I choose the stomach. I should have chosen door three: a new doctor.

Fast forward six months and my partner Summer and I were having the problem also mentioned in our little hypothetical add. So yes, a certain little purple pill saved our sex life (at the time, other factors have since intervened). I'd be happy to tell AstraZeneca all about it but, like my mother, I don't think they are terribly interested in this particular aspect of their product’s “healing” benefits.