MR WRONG: Hard to swallow
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 163
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Medication Obligation
DO YOU TAKE a pill? I have to take a pill. I have a thing, and there’s a pill for it, and the doctor told me I should take the pill, and I said but I don’t wanna take the pill, and the doc said nah man take the pill, so I got the pill and I take the pill. I have to take it, the pill, every day. Most of the time it’s OK, but sometimes I forget, and then that fucks everything up, you know? I mean it’s not like I am gonna die if I don’t take the pill that one time, but if I don’t take the pill then it bangs up against the next time I have to take my pill, see? Then I’m always like, oh, wow, I will have too much pill in me, that can’t be good. I have experience with that, too much pill!
It’s only one pill, so it’s not like having one of those multicolored plastic pill-things to keep your pills straight would help, you know? It’s one pill! I don’t need S-M-T-W-T-F-S-S, right? although I put three S’s in there, so maybe that’s part of my problem, Am I taking too many pills? S for Sunday, S for Saturday, and then S for Stomach-pump!
Some pills are good though. I’m not talking about the ones you take for fun, that’s your business, goofball. I am talking about the one that I take, my personal pill. They (the doctors) did some tests to see if the pill they told me to take was going to fuck me up, and the results came in and the pill does not fuck me up. Then they did some tests to see if the pill does the thing the pill is supposed to do, healthwise, and the pill totally does it. It is the Miracle of Modern Medicine. Science, even. Also, I have no side effects. At least I don’t think I do. I mean, I don’t always feel terrific, but that’s just Life, right? You can’t be a Home Run every day, some days you are a Double, and some days you are a Single, and some days you just fuckin’ Strike Out, right? Today I feel like a Foul Tip or maybe a Pop Fly or a Dribbler down the Third Base Line. Or a Drag Bunt, that’s a good one! OK, I’m out of what I feel like that’s not baseball-Homer. Look, it’s all about your attitude, you got nothing coming, wake up in the morning and you’re not dead, it’s a win, go get ’em, and so if you have to take a pill, well, it could be worse, right?
Off-topic: A lotta people are goofing on The President of The United States (POTUS) right now because there’s this picture going around of him with half his mouth all droopy, and the Amateur Doctors of Medicine on the Internet are all, “totally a stroke, cooked, etc,” but as a Professional Columnist, I am gonna diagnose it as Bell’s Palsy. I’ve seen it in real life, that’s what he’s got, if I could get a bet down, I would, just saying. Also, there’s gotta be a pill for that.
OK, back to me and my pill! Look, the other day I went and got a shot for Covid, to not get it, and in the same arm at the same appointment I got a shot for the Flu. Also I got a sticker that reads I AM BRAVE, with an owl on it. I feel like it’s easier to get some shots than it is for me to take my stupid pill every day.
Or actually, it’s at night, I take my pill at night, and that might be part of why I am always worried about taking my pill, because if I conk out on the couch watching Star Trek or whatever, and then I wake up to go to bed, that’s the perfect time for me to forget to take my pill, because I am drowsy, and I am trying to preserve my drowse-bubble so I can slide back into the Arms of Morpheus after I brush my teeth, which almost always wakes me the fuck up, dammit, all the minty freshness!
Sometimes I try to brush my teeth very gently and quietly, I’m standing there in the bathroom just kinda rubbing the toothbrush on my teeth, just sorta pushing it, but then the toothpaste doesn’t break down, I have a lump of toothpaste in my mouth, so I have to increase my vigor, and then a lotta times that wakes me up, and then also sometimes that’s when I remember I didn’t take my goddamn pill.
So now I have to go downstairs to the kitchen cabinet where I keep my pills, because I don’t like drinking water in the bathroom, it’s bathroom water, you know? I know it’s the same, but still, it’s in the bathroom, the bathroom air touches the water when it comes out of the spigot!
Anyway, I go downstairs to take my pill, but by then I have already made my way upstairs to go sleepy-time-night-night, and I turned off all the lights, and now I am either gonna try to take my pill in the dark, or I am gonna turn on a light and blind myself with blazing lightbulbs and perforate my drowse-bubble, if I didn’t already break it from the toothbrushing and walking up and then down the stairs, I mean, it’s cardio, right? It gets your blood pumping, and then you get into bed with your heart going way more than it should when it’s bedtime, I mean, I was all perfectly Low Energy, falling asleep to some teevee, and then it’s ruined by physical activity. Maybe I should take a sleeping pill.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, September 10, 2025
★★ The light was so feeble that even the canopy of the potted fig could block it. The pavement was wet or wettish, with a different shade of the wetness showing on each different vintage of sidewalk cement. A short walk bare-armed in a t-shirt felt like a long one. A woman spoke sharply to her dog to get it moving. The midday rawness became something milder in the afternoon, and the clouds stopped holding back the blue as much. Bits of peach and silver shone over a late day gone comfortable and only a little clammy. Under the trees, the ground remained wet still. There were still enough clouds after dark to catch the light pointing up from Lower Manhattan.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
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Tom Scocca
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TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
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SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from Benson Woman's Club Cook Book, collected and compiled by Benson Woman's Club, published in 1915 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
VEAL FILLING.
One pound veal, 1 pound pork butts. Boil until tender and grind through food chopper. Add salt, pepper, cream, and chopped pickles.
—Mrs. G. W. Lutton.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
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