For me, Infomercials are a love/hate relationship. Often they sneak up on me when I’m rocked back in a barcalounger in some sort of late night trance, one hand on my crotch, the other on a tepid beer. Seventeen minutes will pass by until I snap out of my hypnosis and think, “What the fuck am I watching?”
I’ve seen Chuck Norris pump his carrot-hued mullet up and down the TotalGym so many times that I think I’ve actually gained muscle definition. I’ve sat through so many Real Estate infomercials that I could open a school tomorrow, scamming insomniacs across the country into buying no-money-down investment strategy programs. On the technical side, I now have the knowledge to fully automate a kitchen with salad shooters, blenders, mixers, slicers, dicers, rotisseries, penny chopping knives, fat melting grills, and loaf launching bread makers. By pushing fifteen buttons I could put Mario Batalli out of a job.
Sometimes though, the infomercials offer some good, campy fun and I have to give credit where it’s due. Watching testimonials from male septuagenarians cured of erectile dysfunction by some ancient herbal remedy from Malaysia or some new fangled device ranks up there among the best. And that’s precisely why I didn’t change the channel when an infomercial for Pos-T-Vac came on the TV.
The Pos-T-Vac is touted as a non-surgical, non-medicinal treatment for erectile dysfunction. In fact, they have created a product that treats ED through a process of vacuum therapy. Okay, as the fact behind that statement sinks in, I’ll cut to the chase. The truth is, the Pos-T-Vac is a penis pump. That mid-life crisis novelty product of the eighties has finally made a comeback through clever re-marketing as a therapeutic tool for sagging, wrinkled, and flaccid phalluses.
Basically, you stick your wang in a clear plastic tube and by way of suction, blood starts flowing to your man parts. Think of it like a cock kick-starter. Or better yet, a dick-starter. I just copywrited that, so I better not see any Dick-Starters on the market this coming year. Seriously, I’ll hunt you down and beat you to death with with a cock-shaped mallet. Anyway, back to the point. Once your man-meat is full with blood and hard enough to dent steel, you put a ring around the base of your penis so the blood doesn’t slip out like air leaking from a deflating balloon. What comes next is up to the customer, whether it be chasing granny fanny in a power scooter or simply staring in amazement at the paradoxically virile monument standing proud between your legs.
What’s possibly most perplexing about this penis pump is that it’s covered by Medicare. Through research I found that hearing aids, most prescription drugs, and eye examinations, however, are not covered. So it doesn’t matter that the old man driving in front of me can’t see and can’t hear and is probably suffering from some other untreated malady, as long as he has the equivalent of a Reebok Pump for his dong, all is good. I find this to be a mix-up in priorities. But seeing what the Congressional record is on extracurricular boning activities, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
Don’t get me wrong though, I think if people had more sex we’d be a happier nation. I’m just not sure that we’re prepared for the backlash of vacuum therapy. What backlash? The one where grey-haired men across the country begin volunteering to take over domestic responsibilities, saying to their wives with a wry grin and a twinkle in their eye, “Honey, I think it’s time we upgraded to a Dyson, don’t ya think? You know that they never lose suction.”
