Dumber than a Zucchini Squash (part VII)

Good old Bob admitted to me one day he was "having trouble" performing with the ladies and was ready to try that Viagra he'd heard about on television. With decided misgivings, I reviewed the possible side effects of the drug with him. I told Bob the drug should be taken one hour before sexual relations. Bob folded the prescription and stuffed it in his pants pocket. "I don't want no body seeing this, know what I mean?" He raced to the pharmacy. Embarrassed for anyone to see what the script was for, he slid it onto the pharmacy counter upside-down and pushed it toward the pharmacist, making a studied effort to avoid eye contact.

Bob told me later the pharmacist glanced at the script and smirked at him, like they were sharing an inside joke. The pharmacist, bespeckled and bald, told Bob to browse around the store. "I'll page you overhead when your script is ready for pick-up."

Twenty minutes later, the following announcement was broadcast overhead, for shoppers everywhere to hear: "Will the patient with the prescription for Viagra come to the pharmacy--your prescription is now ready."

Shame-faced, Bob slunk to the counter noticing several shoppers smirking and staring at him. "Did you have to announce it over the loudspeaker?" he hissed at the pharmacist. "I don't want the ladies to know I take this stuff."

"HIPPA law no longer allows us to announce the patient's name overhead so we now page by the name of the medication," the pharmacist responded unapologetically.

The pharmacist then reviewed the potential side effects of Viagra in a voice loud enough to alert shoppers three aisles away what Bob was taking. (So much for HIPPA privacy!)

When he got to the side effect of "an erection lasting longer than four hours," Bob grinned. "Four hours? The ladies will love that."

The pharmacist turned green, no doubt thinking, "Too much information."

Later that night, Bob decided to try Viagra for the first time.

One hour later, Bob paged me, frantic. "Dr. Burbank, that Viagra you wrote me for ain't working. I took it an hour a ago and it ain't done nothing."

What's that I'm hearing in the background? A boxing tournament??? "Where are you, Bob?" I inquired.

"I'm home watching TV. Why?"

"Bob, maybe it would help if you and your girlfriend did something a tad more romantic than watching a boxing tournament."

"There ain't no lady here--it's just Trixie and me." (Trixie is his vicious Siamese "guard" cat.)

"You mean you don't even have a woman in the room? Viagra doesn't just cause an erection like you'd pumped yourself up with a bicycle tire pump. You have to engage in normal sexual activity. Foreplay." (Knowing Bob, he probably didn't know what the word meant.)

Bob released a nervous laugh. "Oh! You didn't tell me that. I figured I'd wait for it to give me them four hours of action the pharmacist talked about then I'd head on down to the local bar and when the ladies saw how excited I was, they'd be begging me for some action. Know what I mean?" He laughed so hard he snorted.

Yuk and double yuk! He wanted to use the drug to pick up virtual strangers in a bar? Triple yuk! Was it too late to rescind his prescription? Did he seriously think Viagra would work with him sitting on the couch all by himself immersed in a boxing tournament?  Apparently Bob's idea of an aphrodisiac was some guy walloping another in a televised boxing match!

Sorry, Bob! It doesn't work like that!