Greetings. I’ve been away for a while, distracted by travel, a restive Muse, this and that.
Writers are notoriously perceptive, and so it is that, during my travels, I saw that drugstores were not the same drugstores I used to go to and say gimme some aspirin, or “I’d like a packet of those things, you know … Yeah. No, no! You don’t have to wave them around, for chrissake.” Like much else in our world, things have changed since last I noticed.
A cure for writer’s block. Whoa! Creativity capsules. Writing can be easy.
Yeah, just go into a drugstore, these days, and take a look. There’s a prescription for just about anything you need to enhance your person. At the same time, drugstore shelves groan under the weight of all the herbal equivalents that Nature provides. All the virtues plus natural goodness, by God.
Peace. Can’t sleep? Up tight all the time? There are plenty of herbal remedies—nature’s tranquillizers and sleeping pills.
Beauty. Afraid you’re not attractive? They have stuff that’ll make your skin glow and your eyes sparkle.
Wisdom. Of course beauty is only skin deep and you’ll want deeper qualities. Didn’t pay attention in school, maybe got short-changed on the genetic front? No problem. They can supply “smart pills,” food for the brain and boosters for the memory.
Strength. Do you want bigger muscles, more stamina, more speed? Natural steroids may be the answer.
Potency. They can keep you long and strong.
Goodness. Anything that is natural, organically grown, or herbal is good, and you can share in this goodness simply by ingesting the stuff.
Security. You don’t like this idea of growing old and dying? Everyone wants to know the future, wants guarantees against such contingencies as cancer. Anti-oxidants are one answer. A whole bunch of them all together in one pretty red capsule. And they’ve thrown in selenium because somebody started a rumor that none of the other stuff is going to do any good unless you also get your selenium. Now, if you get enough of this good shit, it can’t hurt if you live on hamburgers, from time to time. You’re still getting all your vitamins, you think, and you eat a bunch of garlic capsules because that’s good for your blood pressure, and it shouldn’t matter too much if you have a bunch of sodium just now. And all this fat. You can also mix wheat bran with your cereal in the morning, and this takes care of your cholesterol and bowel cancer and everything. Call it a kind of internal environmental engineering. You take control of your life, you believe, at the same time you can support such social assets as hamburger chains, drugstores, and McMeditators.
Happiness. If all the foregoing hasn’t made you happy enough already, then go for happiness-specific remedies such as serontin boosters. You can be happier even if you aren’t as strong and beautiful and sexy and smart as you might like.
And I have promulgated my own elixirs, homemade concoctions that may well offer a range of fairly natural therapeutic effects, who knows?
Tequila Mockingbird: Magic potion divinely inspired.
Savage Chickens cartoon used with permission.