The Undocumented Mark Steyn Read Free Page B

my favorite so far, not my favorite to go to dinner and a movie with—is Irving Mesher, described as “a 73-year-old retired New York City firefighter, who currently lives at a family-owned nudist resort in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains.” Mr. Mesher, according to Time , has sex “three or four times a week with several girlfriends in their twenties.” He is planning “a Viagra party.”
    I suppose it was too much to expect American men to take an impotence pill without advertising the fact. After all, the U.S. not only has more women with breast implants than any other country on the planet, but also morewomen happy to tell you they have breast implants—see Pamela Lee, Jenny McCarthy, Jane Fonda. This is in the same fine tradition of full disclosure as the cereal packet: “Grandma’s Country Kitchen Old-Time Vermont Maple Oatmeal. Made in Wisconsin entirely from artificial ingredients.” But, contemplating a society in which artificially aroused men pursue ever more artificially enhanced women, I wonder if we aren’t in danger of unnecessarily complicating the whole business.
    Does America need more seventy-three-year-old nude firemen? It’s bad enough with the old coot down the street standing under our window with his ukulele every night serenading the missus with “Viagra Con Dios.” After my month away, my lovely bride was looking forward to my return, but I couldn’t help noticing on my first evening back that she seemed vaguely. . . dissatisfied.
    “Well, it was okay,” she said after some prompting, “but why can’t you be more like Bob Dole?”
    “Bob Dole?” I scoffed. I was laughing so much I rolled off the bearskin rug, and got rather a nasty splinter. It was only later that I discovered that the test group for the new impotence pill had included the Republican presidential candidate—ex officio, one assumes. Doubtless the congressional leadership made up the rest of the group. But Bob Dole’s endorsement does make you wonder about other possible side effects—a sudden urge to dive off the stage, a tendency to refer to yourself in the third person. I asked my pal Earl—sorry, Chuck—if he was worried.
    “Chuck Malmquist’s not worried,” he said. “Chuck Malmquist’s gonna pop a couple of Viagras, head downtown. It’s about America, leadership, babes, whatever.”
    As I understand it, although Viagra dramatically improves sexual performance, it can also cause headaches, impaired vision, rashes, and diarrhea. Chuck was unperturbed. “Sure, the first time was a problem,” he conceded. “I was in the bar putting the moves on Tina when I suddenly had to rush for the men’s room. By the time I got back, the impaired vision had kicked in, so I went to the wrong table and put my arms around Norm from accounting.He wouldn’t have minded, but my face was breaking out, so he fled screaming.”
    “Good grief, that’s terrible,” I said.
    “Not really. By then I had a jackhammer of a headache, so I just wanted to go home anyway. But I’m on top of it now. First, I take two Viagra, then one Arret for the diarrhea plus another Viagra to counter the side effects of the Arret, then half a dozen Children’s Motrin, followed by Vagisil for the rash plus a couple of Rogaine. . . .”
    “But Rogaine’s for baldness. . . .”
    “Hey, don’t knock it. My new back hair covers the rash. Then I take another Viagra to counter the potential libido-depressing effect of the Rogaine, followed by two Lipitor to lessen my risk of heart attack.”
    “But you’re not at risk of heart attack. . . .”
    “You try doing the mambo with thirty pounds of tablets in your pocket.”
    As Chuck roared off in his new Chevy Agra—the sport-utility vehicle with the world’s largest cup holder—I reflected on how far we’ve come in just a few weeks. I can dimly recall hearing something about Viagra on the radio a month or so back, but assumed it was just an obscure African dictatorship, the latest stop