Your Bathtub or Mine?

Do you take Cialis? Cialis is one of those erectile dysfunction drugs, like Viagra. I’m not trying to get personal, I just want to know this – after you take it, do you have an overwhelming urge to get into side-by-side bathtubs with your partner? Bathtubs that are outside?

Cialis is heavily advertised, especially on TV. Their signature image is of the couple in question, sitting happily in bathtubs, each in their own bathtub, outside on a lawn somewhere. And they are holding hands.

I’ve got a bunch of questions here. First of all, how did they get those bathtubs outside? Did they drag them there themselves? In my house, that kind of heavy labor is a real mood killer. Last weekend my husband took the air conditioner out of our boys’ bedroom window. He lugged it upstairs to the attic while I vacuumed up the mountains of dust and lint it left behind. It didn’t really turn us on. We were more tired than anything else. I can’t imagine what we’d feel like after dragging two old bathtubs out to the middle of the lawn. And the neighbors would just think we’re weird.

Perhaps those bathtubs are not in someone’s yard, but at a fancy hotel. You can book the suite that comes with the outside bathtubs. “Welcome to the Four Seasons. Yes, we have reserved the outside bathtub suite for you. Please be advised that the landscapers will be mowing the lawn between 11 and 2 p.m., so plan accordingly.”

And how do they get the water out there? I don’t see any pipes in that ad, or even any faucets. I am assuming someone has to lug it, bucket by bucket, out to the tub. Or maybe the landscapers fill it up with a garden hose. But how do you heat it? Would someone really go to all the trouble of taking an erectile dysfunction drug, and then settle down in a tub of cold water? It seems a bit counter productive.

Finally, why are they in two separate tubs? Isn’t the whole idea of Cialis to get together? Is one of them going to climb into the other tub? Call me boring, but flailing around in a hard tub of chilly water is something I’ll take a pass on. Most of the couples in the commercial are upwards of 50 years old, so we can assume they are not as limber or agile as they once were. If you’re at the point where you need Cialis, I’m thinking you’re also at the point where you need a nice, forgiving mattress.

I realize the Cialis folks are just trying to create a romantic moment, but they’ve really just created way too much pressure. Like every thing else in our society, regular is not good enough. You can’t just have coffee, you have to have a latte. You can’t just have a kitchen, you have to have a bumped-out kitchen with granite countertops and cherry cabinets. You can’t just have sex, you have to have outside-bathtub-sex.  Maybe all that pressure is why the poor guy needs Cialis in the first place.

Pam Lobley is a humor columnist and playwright.