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Monday, November 11, 2013

Witz Pickz: Giving Me the Best Goddamn Medicine Always


I have a bone to pick with the good people at Vick's--at least I thought they were good people, but now I'm not so sure. Apparently, the folks who provide us with the glorious cold-symptom fighting DayQuil and NyQuil have been holding out on us. I'm talking about DayQuil/NyQuil Severe.

"Relieves your ugliest, nastiest cold symptoms," they say. Here are cold symptoms: coughing, sore throat, runny nose, congestion, and sometimes a fever. Nobody likes any of those. How much relief do I want from those? All of it always. Give me all of the relief.

"Vicks DayQuil Severe Cold & Flu Relief delivers maximum symptom-fighting ingredients to relieve your worst cold symptoms." Why were you not delivering me maximum symptom-fighting ingredients previously?

Scientist: And as for the amount of symptom-fighting relief in the product, I assume maximum?
Dr. Charles T. Vicks, III: Actually, I was thinking we'd go with "a lot."
Scientist: Really? Because usually we try and solve the problem as best as possible.
Dr. Charles T. Vicks, III: I know, I know, but let's mix it up a little.
Scientist: But aren't we trying to be the best product on the market?
Dr. Charles T. Vicks, III: Eh...it's more about image these days. You know, sizzurp, making meth from extracted ingredients, that kind of thing. Carding people in CVS when they buy it so they think it's cool and exclusive.
Scientist: So, "a lot." We're really doing this. DayQuil "A lot" strength. That's...going to happen.
Dr. Charles T. Vicks, III: Yes.
Scientist: And what about maximum symptom-relief?
Dr. Charles T. Vicks, III: Let's put a pin in that and revisit it when our sales start to dwindle.


There's no prescription medication for the common cold--no antibiotic that will make it better. If you go to the doctor for a cold, they give you a pitying look, instructions to drink lots of fluids, and a $30 copay. And I don't have health insurance. When I get sick, I start popping vitamins like they're those invincibility stars in Super Mario Bros: C, B, zinc, Echinacea (obvs), and whatever weird "Wellness Capsules" my dad sends me in the mail that always smell like a combination of garlic and innocence lost. So, YEAH, I want any medicine I take to work as goddamn much as it possibly can.

Are my symptoms always SEVERE? I dunno, but I'm usually a severe asshole when I have a cold, and when I go to work while sick I severely want to murder everyone I encounter followed by myself. So, unless DayQuil Severe causes me to bleed from every orifice or grow a pair of testicles on my back, I'm gonna take it. Hell, even if it does cause those things, I'm probably going to take it--I can sleep on my side and lean forward in my chair at work; and as for the blood, I see three people with worse issues than that every day on the train--and those guys get whole subway cars to themselves! What's the alternative? A sore throat and nasal congestion? No thank you.

I find it very hard to believe they have invented new medicine to make my mucus dry up. If they have, it's time for cancer and AIDS to stop having walks and start taking a page from Vicks' playbook. And also--Vicks: stop trying to mildly alleviate my cold symptoms and start curing those other horrible, horrible diseases! People could really use CancerQuil: Severe Relief.

Don't Call It a Comeback,
Witz