The Way Of Pain(Quil)

I didn't quite remember the quote from FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, to start out this little post (I knew it was something like, "So, you have chosen the way of pain," when it was actually, "I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain"), but every once in a while, I see or hear something that amuses me and want to do a post about it.*

A few months ago, I was walking through the Health & Beauty section of Walmart when I saw a display that had new, fun flavors of NyQuil, the medicine you take to make you sleep when you're sick.**  And one of them struck me as extremely funny--instead of just NyQuil and DayQuil, there was a new red bottle marked PainQuil.

It also comes in purple, for the sleepy kind.

Now, I fully imagine you don't find the name "PainQuil" to be funny (if you did, we'd be closer than we are by quite a bit).  But I find it inexplicably amusing.  PainQuil, a brand name that is uncomfortably close to the word "painful."  Or maybe it's not, maybe it's just me.

Hey, I can't explain why I laughed when I saw it, and brought it up nigh unto incessantly when my cousin and I would go to Walmart.

And then, one day, the PainQuil was gone from the display, never to be brought up again . . . and I regretted never having tried it.  I've never tried a lot of things.***

But hey, the other day, I was walking through the department, minding my business (mankind is my business, the common welfare is my business.  Charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, all are my business), when I passed by the Procter & Gamble-sponsored display . . . and it was back.

A whole rack of PainQuil, in all its red-bottled glory.  Oh happy day!

Did I buy any?  What do you think?

No.  No, I didn't.

And then, around the time I thought of making this blogpost, I took my mother to Walmart for grocery shopping and I said, "Ma, if we see a PainQuil display, will you take a picture of me holding a bottle of it?"  She said she would, but assured me that it wouldn't be the least bit funny . . . and I was disappointed to discover that the display had already been taken down.  Or maybe they had just sold so many bottles of delicious pain-sapping elixir (it's ten percent alcohol, by the way!) that they had to replace it with Q-Tips or rubbing alcohol or adult diapers.

But then, last night, my sister complained that the lightbulbs in her refrigerator went out, so I volunteered to get her replacements, and in the Walmart in her town . . . they had PainQuil--it turns out it comes in Cherry flavor and also Honey.  So, I got my picture.

Was I right?  Or was it my mother as usual?

*See also "Don't follow me, creepy creeper."

**As a child, the ad went, "The nighttime coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine."

***A buddy of mine in Los Angeles had a child and handed out cigars to everybody at work.  I had never smoked, but I told myself, "Well, if I ever do, at least I'll have this fancy cigar at my disposal."  But alas, when a certain hygiene product in my apartment complex started breaking into my place when I was gone (douche--I was calling him a douche there), besides my DVDs, X-box, self-inflating love doll, and coin collection (also in a ceramic container in the shape of a love doll), one of the things he stole was that cigar Kevin had given me.  Sigh.