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Phil LaMancusa

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Millions Like Me

        “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, they taste your guts and they spit ‘em out; they use your bones for telephones and call you up when you’re not at home…” The Hearse Song

        I consider myself a healthy guy, that is until I watch the evening news in the television and subjected to the commercials telling me to be suspicious about how sick I might be.

        Oh, it starts off easy (if you’re like me); you watch the news, paying kinda attention to the sixty second sound bites of info that are fired at you, hoping to soak up empathy, outrage, understanding, sagacity and possibly some sense in Olympian time about what is going on in your city, state and country and like a sponge watch with wonder and horror as the world goes to hell in a hand basket, down the creek without a paddle in a leaky old boat. You basically tune out the commercials to catch your breath and maybe digest what you just heard/saw. Letting it all kinda sink in.

        However, and you may have noticed, commercials are at different decibels from the news, a little louder, the voices more insistent, the wording more forceful and the themes more dramatic. Buy a car, truck, SUV, go to the casino for a big payoff and you better get that auto glass company to come out right away!

        In a half hour of local, and the same for national, news there can be between 12 and 20 commercials (Quora.com); each advert is from 15-30 seconds and typically this can take up 7-8 minutes of a half hour program (mocktheagency.com). Doing the math myself, this subjects my un/semi/complete consciousness to up to 32 commercials in an hour’s time just trying to stay abreast of what’s happening in the world around me.

        Wayfair, healthcare, vitamins and ZZZQuil; financial planners, asbestos lawsuits, Freshpet dog food and Cox mobile. Stop smoking to avoid disfiguring amputations; take Prevogin so you can remember stuff; get vaccinated and a Pod for you to get out of town efficiently. Prudential wants to insure you; shingles doesn’t care (Shingrix); get stronger enamel for your teeth and Charity Hospital is here for you. Vapofreeze for back pain, body wash for your silky skin and some deo for your b.o. Better get a bathroom update, some shutters while you’re at it; windows, a new roof and a boost for your antidepressant with side effects that include “suicidal thoughts and actions”.

        Dry eyes; dry mouth; Visit Mississippi and join a Credit Union. Metamucil will keep you regular, Tums will keep you settled; replace that old air conditioner; now back to the news.

        Murder, mayhem, a woman who had a baby had another one; a silver mine in Rio is tarnishing; a defrocked Mother Superior is on the lam; the war has moved again and we’re sending lawyers guns and money because the shit has hit the fan. Protesters have taken over the Mall because of our policies in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine, China, Korea and Afghanistan.

        Repatha; Solanpas; Keytruda; Ozempic; Quilipta; Prezervision; LDLC; Arezvy; Ingrezza, Fasenra, Breztri and Syfovre all want me to ask my doctor if they are right for me. Advil for fast pain relief. Do I have TD, RFT, ED, ADAD, EYLEA-HD or a GED? Is it TED.com? Well, all these are good for coughs, colds, sore holes and will put hair in anything but a cue ball and I better get crackin’!

        There are at least four injury lawyer companies that grab at my attention in case I’m ever rear ended, t-boned or slammed into by an 18 wheeler, company car or mule and wagon and I need to “make that call!” “They got me 200, 300, 750, 800 thousand dollars!” here’s the number; write it down, memorize it, tattoo it to your eyelids; it’s gonna happen to you and you should be ready to do like thousands of other people have done; don’t delay, operators are standing by 24 hours AND weekends! “We’ll fight to get you all the money you deserve!”

        Does your mom need elder care; maybe a protein supplement, a trip to the Fairgrounds, something to subdue her or maybe I should look up my ancestry for my DNA to see if we really are related. Now back to the weather, news, traffic, politics, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and storms that are affecting my area.

        Why I bother to sit down in the afternoon, just about every afternoon, with coffee, cookies, Debbie and the dog to watch this assault on my psyche, I wonder. Is this worth it? Is this the price I have to pay for wanting to know what the heck is going on? I mean, I was not exposed to asbestos in 1982; I have never used hair straighteners that can cause uterine cancer; hell, I don’t even have a uterine! I promise that my doctors have no suspicion of COPD or other things that will affect my longevity and immortality and I’m still not bad on the dance floor.

        So what do I do? I’ll tell you. I subscribe to media in print, hard copy that I can read at my leisure; decipher according to me; believe what I want; stay up to date with whatever the press is willing to assume that I will take at face value and if I want to know the weather, I’ll stick my head out of the window. I may even get a Mr. Rogers sweater, a rocking chair and a porch to sit on (my own preferably). I may even start smoking a Meerschaum pipe with something worth lighting up and practice my Italian. Buona giornata gente mia.