Don't cross the [weak] streams

I think I need to mention one of my favorite commercials. Actually, I hate it, but you know what I mean. You have probably seen it, but you may have missed to good parts, since it's a pharmaceutical ad, and people usually pay as much attention to them as they do interest rates by the Federal Reserve. The wonderdrug at hand, though, is Flomax. This is one doubles your pleasure because there are two comercials: one in a Mustang and one in a sportfisherman. Flomax is a treatment to improve urination. (Hence the name - Flomax. Get it?)

Now, the good parts of this are that they talk about how men want to do take long drives without taking too many pit stops and do manly things like fight kingfish, then they go ahead and show four men in like a 1965 Mustang. If you don't know what that's funny, you have never been inside a Mustang -- four guys seated in one is, well, a little gay. Especially when they are 50 something men who all have urinary troubles as a common bond. As is the lusty look one gives another while fly fishing, or the fellow who wraps his arm, lovingly, around his "friend" after a nice golf shot at the end. That's not really a huge deal, but it's an odd sell when manliness is so central to the campaign.

Here are the symptoms Flomax will treat: Going often, strainging, going urgently, stopping and starting, weak stream, incomplete emptying, or waking up to go. My favorite of this list has to be weak stream, because I can only imagine some seventy year old man saying to his urologist, "Hell no there's nothing wrong with it. It all comes out fine, it just takes 17 minutes for me to piss." Notice how when I mention numbers, I spell them in words, but when old men do, they write them as numerals. The same thing happens in person, too.

The side effects were lowered blood pressure, to the point of fainting when standing up suddenly. But I would imagine that this problem is counteracted with an appropriate dose of Viagra. Considering the trouble region, it doesn't seem such a stretch to think some of the same blokes may be in the market for both Flomax and Viagra. After thinking about this, I hope this drug is for real, because with this application and a name like Flomax, it really could be a big joke they're playing on me.