TiVO, Sunsets and Erectile Disfunction

Our TiVO blew up and we are not going to replace it. In fact, we aren’t going to have a TV. We’ll watch DVDs and what the internet has to offer on iTunes downloads or free shows on our iMac 24” screen. But for the last three weeks I’ve been watching TV with commercials, something I haven’t done for years and am most impressed and surprised at the number of happy middle aged couples I’ve seen who lounge smiling blissfully waiting for his Cialis, Levitra or Viagra to kick in. Or maybe she’s smiling hoping for some of those horrible side effects to manifest thinking that it really isn’t fair that pharmaceuticals have given her geezer a surge of new urge. In one commercial the couple waits watching a sunset in separate outdoor bathtubs which raises many questions about what will happen later. What’s that one about, anyway? Why two tubs? I’m missing the metaphor.
The commercials clearly tell us that ED pills will save and enhance a relationship but there does seem to be a lot of waiting involved. Perhaps the drugs teach patience which is always useful in a relationship. Or, in the case of the female participant, the lesson of resignation and acceptance. For once the pill is popped one must assume an inevitability, an unnatural, unspontaneous unfolding of predictable events. And what does one do if the result is not happy sunset but the dreaded priapism,the very nasty sounding word describing a six hour erection? Do you just stay in your tub waiting for the sun to come back up? ED is obviously a problem (was going to say a “big” problem but that sounds inappropriate) as evidenced by the amount of spam finding its way to my email inbox offering all manner of medicines, prescription and otherwise, intended to extend (probably not the best word choice either) one’s sexual life. The point is, it wasn’t something I worried about when I had TiVO. Now I have to figure out where to put the two bathtubs.