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Nothing Personal
Nothing Personal: Turkeys making turkeys
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Brilliant Careers
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Nothing Personal
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By Amy Reiter
[11/23/99]

Complete archives for People

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Christ.

Like I'm sure thousands of other people did today, I made a joke about Viagra. A co-worker walking by made an offhand comment about the droopiness of a floral arrangement on my desk, and I jokingly suggested dropping a Viagra in the vase to "perk things up" a bit. I expected to hear a courtesy chuckle as he walked away, but I didn't. And now here he is, lurking ominously over me, essentially asking me if I have trouble getting it up.

"No!" I finally say defensively.

Why would I have tried it? That stuff's for old men whose spouses sleep in separate beds. I'm a virile, healthy, 29-year-old American male. Sure, there has been a time or two when, for reasons ranging from disinterest to methamphetamine, little Tyson wasn't quite ready to get in the ring when the bell rang. But that happens to everybody, right? OK, yeah, so I recently acquired a 19-year-old girlfriend and maybe I've been feeling just a tad insecure about not being capable of some of the erectile heroics I was capable of at 16, when random stiffies occurred more often than not, and were so solid they were almost prehensile: you could hang umbrellas on them.

But things are fine ... I haven't been worried about it.

"You should try it. Trust me," he says, "it's amazing."

But I ...

"Doesn't matter ... try it. You will thank me."

Hmmm. Do you have any?

"Nope. I just tried it last weekend. A buddy gave it to me. It's easy to get. Try the Net." He winks and walks away.

Hmmm.

Six hours later I'm at home in front of the computer looking at one of about 47 Viagra Web sites I found and answering a confidential medical questionnaire over a secured Internet connection. Pretty basic stuff at first: Name, Date of birth, Medicinal allergies. Then we get to the good stuff: No, I am not "experiencing erectile dysfunction," (really!) but for the sake of this experiment, I click the "Yes" button. I hear a voice of dissent begin to growl from within my pants. Soon it's crying out in anger ... rage at the slander that is being committed online. I tell it to calm down, that this is just an experiment, blah, blah, blah.

And then I realize I am speaking out loud to my penis. Jesus, maybe I do have a problem.

Whatever.

So I submit my form and my credit card number and am told that an online physician will carefully review my questionnaire and, if his expert diagnosis determines that Viagra is right for me, my order will be shipped immediately via commercial carrier.

Two seconds after I click the "OK" button, I receive an e-mail saying the online physician has carefully reviewed my questionnaire (and presumably my credit card number) and after much deliberation has decided that yes, Viagra is indeed for me.

Hot damn.

Twenty minutes later, the package arrives at my door. Amazing. I rip open the package and find the holy pills complete with instructions. Highlights include the following: