but I play one on teevee

I don't think I did anything yesterday. Honest, there was nothing. Well, I washed dishes and I took a bath. So yesterday was a day about washing.

On Nicole's recommendation, I looked into toosoon.com, which is a web site all about a scary, scary drug that can be used to delay the onset of puberty. The site itself did little explaining, however, it makes use of a slightly gender-neutral mascot "Terry Too-Soon" who wears a pink polka-dotted tee and yellow overalls. The site's color scheme relies on an unfortunate shade of blood red along with puke green and yellow-orange. That alone was enough to make my hair stand on end.

I'm certain that there are some legitimate medical uses for this drug--the site claims about 5,000 cases in the U.S. each year--but the potential for misuse by "concerned" parents and doctors is shocking. It sounds to me like the pharmaceutical equivalent of locking you in a closet until you're 18.

I have no problem with companies developing drugs to delay the onset of puberty because of those 5,000 cases but I do have trouble with the marketing. Remember when everybody was dyslexic? Remember how ADD was the diagnosis de jour? What about adult-onset asthma? Disease of the Week is a dangerous problem that I believe stems from marketing. Americans are an overmedicated bunch. There ought to be a pill or a shot to solve every problem. I'd just like to point out that run-of-the-mill puberty is not a problem, and it does not need to be solved.

Unfortunately, there's no cure for hysteria.

~~~~~

The time change still has me messed up, schedulewise. It's a good thing I have nowhere to be in the morning.

before - after