No offense taken or meant, Mick, and I'm reassured that your first reaction was similar to mine. And I think we both agree that that whole deal is ridiculous. It's just, I suppose, that I seem to like ridiculousness more than most...

At the risk of going into TMI mode ~ Too Much Information ~ I am happy to report that, six weeks short of my 60th birthday, I don't really need the stuff, although of course (ahem) I'm not as young as I used to be.

A couple of years ago, I went in for a routine medical checkup when my regular doctor (a very conservative born-again type) was on vacation. The woman doctor who was substituting for him broached the subject of "ED," because she knew that Dr. So-and-so refused to prescribe the stuff for anyone. I allowed that, while not flat-out impotent, maybe I'd like to try some, just to see if things would, er, work a little bit better. So she wrote me a scrip.

When I went to the drug store, the pharmacist took me aside ~ way aside, in an effort to be extra-confidential ~ and advised me that my prescription was going to cost me something like $350 (!). Was I still interested? I told him to give me about $20 worth, which was about 2 or 3 doses.

It was an interesting experience. I could tell the stuff had an effect, but the Mrs. claims not to have detected anything different at all, so I never bothered to follow up. Not yet, anyway...