A Pilgrim’s Digression

Mainly because I have no idea how I’d ever work this into a piece of fiction, I am printing here a parody of a commercial I thought of this morning, while lying awake before dawn.

[Advertisement begins with a college-age girl sitting on her bed, listening to her iPod. Her Dad enters nervously, hesitates, then sits down on the bed beside her; she pops her earbuds out of her ears to hear what he has to say.]

Dad: Honey, I’m going to be leaving on a cruise to the Bahamas with my new “friend” Valerie. I was wondering…well…do you have any more of those little blue pills?

Daughter: Dad, you don’t have to be embarrassed.

[Daughter reaches beneath her pillow and pulls out a foil pack of blue tablets. Dad takes them gratefully, blushing.]

Daughter: Remember, Dad, just one little blue tab a day and you’ll feel twenty years old again.

Dad: [Laughing] They’re even the color of my new sports car.

[A man dressed in the white coat of a doctor walks on camera.]

Doctor: If you’re a man going through a mid-life crisis, you should ask your daughter or son about new non-prescription Vaygar™. It completely breaks down the inhibitions that prevent you from achieving the happiness you deserve at your age. And just one little blue tab a day helps silence the prickings of conscience that may keep you from acting on your impulses. You won’t even remember your ex-wife’s name, let alone that you left her for a younger woman.

Announcer: [speed reading] Side effects will include overwhelming lust accompanied by heart palpitations and shortness of breath at sight of young women, an erection that lasts longer than 24 hours, excessive use of credit cards on unnecessary purchases, and sudden marriages.

Doctor: So ask your daughter about new non-prescription Vaygar™. After all, you’ve worked hard all your life. Why should young people have all the fun?

Announcer: New Vaygar™. Also available in new Vaygar B.C.™, for children worried about their Dad replacing them with step-siblings. Vaygar B.C.™: birth control for your Dad.