Life, Distilled: #1: Drugs and the heads that need them
David Lawrence Ramsey
10/05/2004

It's been one of those days.  There goes that voice in your head again, 
telling you that you don't enjoy anything in life and you need help.  
Wait a minute, that's just the TV playing a commercial for an 
antidepressant drug.  A commercial in which all the characters are big 
heads that spend all their time hopping around.  One of the heads is 
depressed while the others are happy, and when the depressed head takes 
the drug being advertised, it instantly becomes happy too and can spend 
all its time hopping after butterflies and doing whatever else the other 
heads do all day.

Aren't these commercials disturbing?  You'd think that all the heads 
would be depressed, given that they're just, well, heads.  What do they 
do when there aren't any butterflies to hop after?  "Dear Diary: Not 
much new today.  Tried hopping after a mosquito, but it's just not the 
same.  No end in sight to the war against the Evil Communist Feet.  Bit 
the ankle of some bratty kid who tried to play kickball using me.  God, 
my life sucks."  Of course, only one of the heads can show any of this 
depression during the commercial, and only then until the drug kicks in.  
The others probably have to take the same drug en masse just before the 
cameras start rolling.  "Okay, is everyone stoned yet?  Good.  Take 
one..."

As for the drugs themselves, listen to the list of side effects they 
have: nausea, insomnia, sexual side effects, etc.  There should be user 
testimonials for these.  Just picture someone with protruding eyes and 
an insanely wide grin staring at you from your TV screen and chirping, 
"Since I started taking Hapipilz, my life has gotten so much better.  I 
can't keep anything down, I can't sleep, and I can't have sex.  I HAVE 
NOTHING TO BE DEPRESSED ABOUT NOW!"

Are the people selling these drugs not paying attention to this?  Maybe 
they're hoping to sell more drugs to counteract these side effects, so 
that depressed people who want to function properly will be on so many 
drugs that paying their medical bills will eliminate the national debt 
and help the economy.  If this is the case, then will it eventually 
become a patriotic duty for depressed people to get on a myriad of 
drugs?  "Drug companies: They're not just saving you from depression, 
they're saving the country from it.  Be a good American citizen and get 
hopped up today."

If all of this wasn't bad enough, there are antianxiety drug commercials 
that are in the same vein as the antidepressant drug commercials, heads 
and all.  The same principles apply to them, especially those dealing 
with side effects.  In their case, though, the sexual side effects might 
be a worse problem.  Picture another user testimonial: "I wasn't getting 
any action before I got started on Setaldoun because I was too anxious 
to ask anyone out.  But now that it's turned down the anxiety dial, I 
can ask out anyone that I like without a problem, although I still can't 
get any action because it's also turned down another dial, if you know 
what I mean..."

Finally, you have to call a telephone number to get more information on 
any of the drugs.  How are you supposed to do that if you're too anxious 
to talk to people over the phone, or too depressed to get out of bed and 
pick up the phone in the first place?  It should make you wonder what 
the people behind these drugs do in their spare time.  Do they hold 
seminars on overcoming the fear of heights at the top of the Empire 
State Building, oblivious as to why they have so few attendees?  "I 
wonder why no one's shown up for the seminar.  And why the birds are all 
flying so low.  And why the surrounding buildings are all so short.  
Maybe the people in that space station I see can tell me!"

Well, I'd write more about this, but I have to get out for awhile before 
I start climbing, I mean hopping up the walls in here.  The Feet shall 
soon feel my wrath!  Now where'd I put my drug ration?