Bedtime. I trudge to the kitchen, grab the container that holds my daily medications, and begin the ritual.
One by one, I jiggle capsules and tablets from iodine-brown translucent bottles. I watch them spin slightly on the counter as they bounce into each other. They’re all different sizes and shapes; I know them by heart.
Here’s the one to keep me happy, the one to regulate my blood pressure, the one to keep arthritis pain at bay.
I’m grateful to live in an era that offers such wondrous medical treatments. Without these pills, I would be sad and achy. My blood would surge through my veins in dangerous gushes.
But I’m feeling a bit unsatisfied with my prescriptions lately. They are all so safe/predictable/uninspired.
I want the pills they give those people on TV.
You know the ones. They hop onto the screen accompanied by catchy, energy-fueled ditties that test the effectiveness of my blood pressure meds when I watch.
I want to hop up and join them as they dance and sing about their newfound health.
A woman looks nearly my age, a little plump, and dressed in a fashionable, comfortable outfit. Her face glows with fervor as she shimmies around the town square. Her song sails around other dancers who share her excitement.
“Thanks to ***, I’m nearing my target weight, my skin is clearer, and I feel alive!”
Below her clomping dance moves, all the dangers and warnings of the medicine she’s taking scroll by in tiny letters. A calm-but-stern voice reads them at breakneck speed. But I don’t listen. I just want what she has.
Other commercials pelt my sedately-medicated sensibilities with scenarios of what COULD BE if I just took the newest pills for all kinds of conditions I don’t have.
The actors are generally older, like me, but they can do things now that I have never been able to do. Even when I was pill-less.
The folks with asthma seem to have the most exciting transformations. I watched a man with a nasty sneeze and watery eyes change before my eyes. With his new prescription, he can play clarinet in an orchestra, frolic among wildflowers, and cruise along a mountain highway in a cherry-red, midlife-crisis Corvette convertible.
A woman holding a sad face stapled to a tongue depressor seems at her lowest. She trudges along the sidewalk, and her children trail along behind her. Although she tries to remain calm and pleasant, you just know she’d rather be taking another nap.
Then, she decides to try a new mood-lifting medicine. It must work very quickly, because within 30 seconds, she is a new mommy. The sad cardboard face is gone; she’s galloping across the playground with her kids, and her hair is bouncy and clean.
She smiles and, I swear, her teeth reflect glittery mania. She is a happy woman. Really happy.
My own prescription doesn’t do that for me, but do I want it to? I like a good cry now and then…
Some of these lucky people get to go places once their meds kick in. They hop onto trams at Disney World, meet scores of friends at jazz clubs, steer a snowmobile down mountains, and even sport fins and goggles in a clear-blue sea.
Last night, I watched a newly treated couple go from a dull, itchy marriage to a romantic vow renewal on a beach in Hawaii. All thanks to clearer skin.
Now, I don’t want every illness I see in the commercials. I am happy that I’m healthy and regulated by the medications that have kept me company for decades.
But as time goes on, and these commercials keep assaulting my eyes, I wonder what I’m missing by not having an allergy or trouble processing fatty foods.
For now, I just watch the commercials with my stable, but boring, health.
***
Contact Robin at robinwrites@yahoo.com.
