Judy's Turn

Let's Talk About Something Embarrassing!

"I need to speak with you."

When I was a child, especially a teenager, I dreaded those words. It signaled my mother was going to talk about something truly, excruciatingly, embarrassing.

So, let's talk! About ED!

No, not the biology of erectile dysfunction or the psychological toll on its sufferers or the affects on marriages and extracurricular affairs. Let's talk about the ads. Especially the campaign for Cialis.

I don't get it. (I'm making a blogging habit of "not getting it," like some kind of weird Andy Rooney of the internet. Last week, I didn't get why men find Sarah Palin attractive. But case solved: $22,000 makeup artists can turn any pit bull into a show poodle.) So on to ED!

The Cialis pitch always ends with a shot of the happy middle-aged couple sitting side-by-side in matching Victorian-style tubs. Outside. On a bluff overlooking the ocean.

I live on the Monterey Peninsula, the geographical "jumping off point" for the romantic Big Sur coast. I've been down to Big Sur countless times. I've hiked its forests, ridden its trail rides, discovered hidden beaches and stayed at the "big two" -- Ventana and Post Ranch, 5-star hideaways that sometimes offer specials for locals (usually during the rainy season).

But never, not once, have I ever seen claw foot bathtubs casually arrayed on the coastline. Hot tubs, yes. Infinity pools, sure. But no sparkling white ceramic tubs. Nope. Never. 

So it's obviously symbolic. But even this is head-scratching. The happy couple is never in the same tub. The tubs are demure, separate, like some 1950s era sit-com where mom and dad always retired to twin beds. Is that what the hidden persuasion is meant to be -- that boomers, now the ED target demographic, were schooled in an era in which the  Beav's parents called "good night" over the lamp table separating their beddy-bye's?

The Eisenhower generation is all grown up and beginning to flag. Forget the sixties -- "Make Love Not War;" "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with!" -- that was just a stage. Back to the fifties with you, sitting in separate tubs, watching the waves crash on the distant shore. 

A View Into A Marriage

Perhaps you're about to get married and you're wondering what it's like to be married to a man who hates - with a passion most people reserve for rats or snakes - shopping for clothes. You go shopping with him and make friends with the sales people. Because they will give up otherwise. I once found my husband running through a store half dressed in a blue suit that he had been trying on. I had gone to another department to look for sweaters for him. He said the suit didn't fit and he was ready to go. He was being closely followed by the salesperson who was trying to explain the process of alterations to him. However, as a salesman himself, he is easily sold. So a clever rep will bring 20 items into the fitting room and he'll buy anything that fits. We were on another excursion last week because he wanted to buy some new pants. Things were going great when the woman helping him mentioned that the pants would need to be altered. This time he was prepared and told her he was busy and he was wondering if he really needed to be there for the alterations. She looked at me dumbfounded and explained to him that the clothes were being altered to fit his body and because of that,  he really needed to be there.  I glanced up from the magazine that I was reading and smiled at her. After the ordeal I told her that she had been a great help and perhaps he could just work with her exclusively for like, the rest of his life. For some reason, she didn't seem to really want that.