In which The Gay Recluse learns about drugs and manners.
So today we attended a panel discussion on the issue of trademarks and pharmaceuticals.
Naming a new drug is sort of like naming a band except it’s even harder!
Because you can’t promise more than you can deliver — e.g., Cancercure — or minimize the side effects, e.g., Safeforall.
Plus you want the letters to look different than anything else when they’re written out, because guess what: sometimes pharmacists can’t tell the difference between “Americo” and “Omerica” when your doctor scrawls out a prescription on a piece of paper. (Those drug names might not be exactly right, but you get the idea.)
So anyway, we were sitting there listening when we realized that we had forgotten to turn off our cell phone.
And we didn’t want to do it then, because it makes this annoying series of beeps when you turn it off. (As for this great “feature,” srsly, wtf?)
So we decided to put the phone under our leg, so that if someone called us, the ring would be greatly reduced, if not altogether muted. (Kind of like farting into a cushion?) Still — even though we don’t get many calls on our cell phone — we were nervous!
Then a phone rang! For a second we thought it was ours, but it actually came from across the room. It pretty much sounded like a bullhorn. Then it rang again. And one more time.
Guess what? Even though everyone was like wtf, the guy answered it. “Hello?” he said, and not in a whisper, either, but as if he was in his office. Or in any case, certainly not with 100 or so other people listening to a lecture on trademarks and pharmaceuticals.
But then he finally seemed to remember where he was: “Hey, I’m going to have to call you back, ok?” he said, “I’m in a session…great, bye.”
Although we were kind of shocked, in a way, we kind of admired him. (Though not enough to feel any remorse when our own cell phone didn’t ring.)
Sometimes the best solution to a problem is just to pray that it goes away quickly, and then pretend that it never happened at all.
This is where the line between imagination and memory becomes very thin.
