the hard questions

I got this friend, see? And he’s getting a little older. He’s not old, you understand, but he’s got this young girlfriend. Look, I feel dumb asking you this, but you know those commercials you see on the TV? With the man and the woman sitting in separate bathtubs outside, holding hands? The ones for the E.D., they call it?

Yeah, well my friend took some of those. And you know how they say about them lasting over four hours, and calling a doctor and so on? Yeah, well, that happened to my friend. Only try for 12 hours. He couldn’t call a doctor because he had to go to work.

That’s right, laugh it up. You still think it’s funny when I tell you he almost lost his job over it? He has a nice job working the elevator at a fancy hotel. So this night the doors would open and people would file in. He’d say “Up or down?” just like every other day on the job. Without fail, some smarty would say something like: “Looks like up to me.” The laughter still rings in his ears, I tell you.

My buddy, he’s spoken with a lawyer who says he’s got a case, but to sue the company that makes the pills, he’d have to stop taking the pills. And if he does that, he thinks he’ll lose his girlfriend. What does this guy do?

—Down and Out

Ruthless says: The girlfriend, why do you think she’s really with him, huh? Do you think it’s for his remarkable, um…prowess? Don’t you think she might trade the undoubtedly difficult and draining task of dealing with a boyfriend with a chemically induced, 12-hour erection for a hefty monetary settlement from a drug company?

My opinion: I think she’s the one who should file the lawsuit.

Tongue-twister says: Tell “your friend” that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Dr. Sigmund Fraud says: Let’s look at this hypothetically. Let’s say “your friend” (you’re so funny) has to stop taking the pills. Let’s say he wins and is awarded a lot of money. Is he like one of these people you see on the news winning $100 million dollars in the lottery, who say they won’t quit their crappy job because the money won’t change them that much?

(What is wrong with those people, by the way? There oughta be a law that if you win $100 million, you are forced to quit your job. “I would, but I have so many friends here at the collection agency,” you can hear these people saying. They should at least be forced to travel the globe in luxury for a while. Then they can crawl back into their precious cubicles if they just can’t get by without their unlucky friends.)

Truthfully, his real problem may lie with the young girlfriend. A friend of mine, who has been a life-long bachelor, once told me that when he dated a woman much younger than himself it only made him feel that much older. There were no shared points of reference at dinner. He talked about Bob Dylan’s lyrics while she offered that Jakob Dylan was hot looking. That sort of thing. Could be that.

Maybe deep down your “friend” is tired of the whole charade. He may see there’s no real spark in the relationship, but he likes the appearance that there is. Or, he may feel he just can’t go on without his great job operating an elevator. I just don’t know.

I really don’t.

Why’d you have to ask such a hard question?

Get it? Hard question?

Zing!

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