Is there a red pill I can take to make Viagra ads go away?

There was a large ad in the newspaper recently that proclaimed: “Older Men in Italy Don’t Need Viagra … Now We Know Why!” Who could resist a headline like that? Certainly not an older Italian man. I’m an older Italian man, so why didn’t anybody tell me about this miracle formula?

I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about this in a family newspaper, but since a family newspaper carried the advertisement, I’ll give it a shot and keep it G-rated.

You see, I know absolutely nothing about Viagra and those other wonder drugs that give you superpowers, along with the other medications the Pharma industry has whipped up for the preservation and betterment of mankind, not to mention womankind. The only prescription I have is for cholesterol control.

Viagra, otherwise known as the little blue pill, is so popular they advertise it everywhere. You can’t escape it. It generates more advertising than the presidential elections. (Wait, do I have this right? Is it the little blue pill or the little red pill? Or am I confusing Viagra with those “Matrix” pills? In the movie “The Matrix,” the red pill leads to painful truth and the blue pill leads to false contentment. Actually, it sounds a little like Viagra.)

But back to those old Italian men, who made a bigger discovery than Columbus. The newspaper advertisement said this formula rivals the other medications, which are so popular the global market is expected to exceed $4.8 billion by 2030.

I barely got through the advertisement, which was several thousand words long, so long it could have been written by Tolstoy. In fact, it was probably longer than the Constitution of the United States, and I haven’t made it through that, although most of our congresspersons haven’t either.

For background, here’s a short recap, which would be R-rated if they made it into a movie. A Texas woman named Tina wrote about her husband, who’s in his late 50s and had lost “the old spark.” He went on a business trip to Italy, where he found this amazing mystery concoction from a village in northern Italy. I’m not sure whether it was made from parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme. Or from magic mushrooms, cannabis, oysters, hot chili peppers and rhino horns. Whatever the secret was, it helped the guy become Superman in the sack.

The ad had a special introductory offer for the pills, which reputedly turn ordinary men — even 90-pound weaklings — into Italian stallions. In fact, after taking it, they probably change their names to Stallone.

Tina’s life changed in a dramatic way, too. But the photograph in the ad wasn’t a woman in her late 50s. She looked like Leonardo DiCaprio’s new 19-year-old girlfriend, partying on his yacht off the coast of St. Barts. Leonardo, by the way, is pushing 50 and may need the miracle pills soon.

After reading Tina’s account, I suspect a lot of American guys, young and old, are booking flights to Italy to find that village and the fountain of youth.

Being Catholic, I wondered about this stuff until I learned that the Vatican says Viagra is OK because it helps procreation, and if there’s anything this world needs, it’s more procreation.

I follow the science, but science gets it wrong more than anyone will admit. Do you remember a few decades ago, when everyone was running around like Chicken Little, screaming the sky was falling because of overpopulation? Well, the population bomb fizzled.

The doomsday people said we’d have to ship the population to Mars or California to avoid overcrowding, but as it turned out, there won’t even be enough people to pay our Social Security, so someone better start procreating quick.

Donald Trump and/or Joe Biden, in cooperation with Big Pharma, developed the COVID vaccine, and being senior men, they should put their great minds together and endorse a blue pill mandate for the greater good of America.

Pharma is a competitive industry. There’s a lot of aggressive marketing. Pfizer sponsored the Grammys, and pretty soon I suspect they’ll be sponsoring spring break in Miami Beach.

These products are popping up everywhere. My email junk folder is filled with promotions that say, “Click here if you want to …” Use your imagination. (Actually, I used my imagination, which is why I didn’t click.) TV can’t get enough of these commercials, and I suppose we’ll be seeing them on billboards, and they’ll stalk old men on the Internet.

Thank goodness we can count on Big Pharma and even little pharma to cure our ailments. They’re inventing pills for conditions that haven’t been discovered yet, but they’ll be sure they discover them sooner rather than later.

You probably read that Pfizer is researching new strains of COVID so they can continue developing more vaccines to keep us safe. That’s the spirit of capitalism and entrepreneurship and R&D that made America — and that little Italian village — great.