Placebo

By W. R. Jones

    I finished this painting and proceeded to the bathroom for a shower.  I had two choices for towels, an old ratty rag or a brand new fluffy bundle soft as a baby’s bottom.  Being lord of the manner, I assumed my rightly choice of the new towel.

    God damn it.  What do they make these things of?  Is this some type of recycled asbestos?  I’m not trying to slam on the brakes here, I want to get dry.  While feeling very soft, the towel had the absorbancy of aluminum foil.  I was sliding the water back and forth across my body in the hopes it would eventually evaporate.

    My question is do the leaders of the companies that produce this junk EVER try them?

    Here is another winner.  Those cleaning product bottles with the squeeze spray tops.  I have never found one that works.  I squeeze and nothing happens.  Turn the top a little and still nothing.  Rotate it 180, squeeze again and the lever clicks into the locked down position.  I push it forward with my thump, reseat the cap and try again.  Nothing.   GODDAM piece of Japanese junk!  I swap spray caps with the fabric softener (my wife will never know).  Still doesn’t work.  Then I swap with the 409 bottle – nothing.  I give up and remove the top to pour the liquid out the top.  By this time I’m thankful that liquid still flows out of an inverted hole.  Out of the millions of spray bottle tops made, what percentage are ever tested on the assembly line?  Did a single one of them ever work?

   These are placebo lids; not meant to function but to give you a false sense of  satisfaction of work in progress.

    My doctor knows about placebos – here is a recent conversation seceretly recorded in his office:

Dr:   Nurse, who is my next patient.

Nurse:  Mr. Jones

Dr:  Oh no!  Tell him I’m in the hospital on an emergency call.

Nurse:  He saw your car out front.

Dr:  Tell him my mother just died in a flaming car wreck.  I’m at the funeral, the limo picked me up.

Nurse:  You used that story on his last visit.

Dr:  Do you think I could go with maybe a dead aunt?

Nurse:  Dr.,  relax.  You don’t want to lose a patient like Mr. Jones.  Keep in mind he has single handedly put your three children through university, paid for your new Lexus, and paid for your last 3 family vacations.  He is what billing refers to as hypchrondriac gold, hell, maybe even platinum.

Dr:  Ok, good point.  Put some of those Good ‘N Plenty pieces in a prescription bottle for me.  I wonder what kind of cancer he has this week.

    See – the doctor thinks I’m a fool.  He gives me placebos on every visit.  I think he is a fool.  He doesn’t know how well that sugar coated licorice works.  It has cured me of various cancers, TB, gout, immaculate clap, neuritis, neralgia, MS, ALS, headache, tummy ache, runny nose, and any desire to work.  I can feel it kicking in as we speak.  And best of all, my candy is paid for by Medicare.