Sales of HerpEase STD Treatment Skyrocket

he pharmaceutical niche player Algor released startling fourth-quarter projections this week, a reversal of fortunes many in financial circles attribute to the company renaming many of its medications for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Realizing that social embarrassment may play a part in the afflicted avoiding treatment for their cursed states, Algor saw fourth-quarter sales of their best selling herpes treatment ClearVue skyrocket after the drug was changed from its longstanding name of HerpEase.

Finally bending to pressure from marketing experts, Algor has begun renaming its other not-quite-popular-enough drugs under the now commonplace industry practice of drug names that have nothing to do with a condition or its treatment. By the beginning of 2005, the company hopes to offer a complete line of attractively-named treatments for the unfortunately STDed.

GonorRid, the company's industry-standard drug for the treatment of puss-laden malcontents suffering from gonorrhea, will be shipped to pharmacies under its new label of SmoothOperator beginning in January.

A similar fate awaits the company's pride and joy, Crabex, Algor's floundering treatment for pubic lice. After months of focus group testing, Algor has recently decided to rename the drug PartyZone.

Last but not least is SyphiLess, the company's breakthrough treatment for syphilis sufferers. Though Algor has yet to make an official announcement on the renaming of this drug, early leaked reports indicate that the drug will be called either Blissex or PissFree in 2005.

But will Algor's new approach be a success? To answer that question, we went straight to STD sufferers for the real dirt.

"Oh yeah, I'd definitely buy more if it was named something like Smurfies or something, that would definitely boost sales," according to porn impresario Tori Anus, a frequent Crabex user. "Then I'd stop getting those dirty looks from the dried up old bags at the Wal-Mart pharmacy. They'd just think I'd been fucking Smurfs or something."

Determined to dig deeper into the beans of the story, this reporter conducted further research among the loose women of 1-900-HOT-DATE, likely to be experts on the treatment of cock-borne illness. In addition to providing hours or stimulating conversation, Misty and Chakra also provided great advice about writing off the cost of the toll call as a business expense.

"Algor definitely has a hot idea on their hands there," insisted Misty, a buxom brunette with smoldering green eyes. "You're getting me hot just talking about it."

"Hot and naughty," agreed Chakra, a Thai-Scottish delight who insisted on conducting the telephone interview in the nude.

No doubt the executives at Algor have done similar research, since it's loads more fun than the alternative of company execs experimentally contracting STDs themselves to see if they feel embarrassed about getting treatment. So the New Year looks to be a happy one for Algor shareholders, who haven't heard news this good since the company changed its name from Cock Rot Ltd. in 1999, amid reports that investors were too embarrassed to purchase their stock.

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My opponent, Raoul Dunkin, makes a good case. That case is herpes. On the subject of politics, the old adage on children applies to him: Both should be seen beaten to a bloody pulp.

The liberal left is scared guiltless by the powerful agenda put forth by an assumably well-hung president. Still, the best they could offer is Senator John Kerry. John Kerry, who is from Massachusetts and doesn't even sound a bit like Cliff Clavin. Just where is Kerry really from? I'm not naming names, but let it be known that I, Ted Ted, was the first one to notice how French he looked. I'm pretty sure he wears lifts in his shoes to rise above his usual height of 5'1". I have it on good authority.

Kerry comes from the oldest tradition of tax-and-spend liberals. But taxes don't necessarily bother me—okay, they do. They bother me in the worst way. But his lesser qualities are what really scare me about Kerry. All these promises to provide increased medical insurance and bring more jobs to the country. Sure, they'll probably be service industry jobs, but I still say fuck that. The fact that we have four guys vying for one job right now, in some areas, is all that insures me I'm going to get a Whopper without hair in it. Take some fucking care with that sandwich, pizza face, 'cause there's three other greasy teen-agers and a Mexican with a fake green card who are ready to do it my way. Unless Kerry has his way.

Not to mention all the flip flops. I don't want to see my president wearing flip flops. My corneas are still scarred from the sight of Clinton in his jogging shorts—pardon me while I projectile vomit. Presidents should only wear flannel shirts, jeans, and cowboy hats when on vacation, or at the occasional funeral for a world leader. The Democrats have proven they can't be trusted to pick their own off-hours wardrobe. I would like to make it to my death without having seen the president of the United States wearing a hoodie and parachute pants, thank you.

Oh, and he's indecisive on issues. Or not really, perhaps, maybe he's too decisive. He believes in everything everyone else does. He makes fond use of the polls, don't he? Like how he comforts the gay nation and the rest of us at the same time with his assuring mantra: "I support the right for people to do whatever they want, and endorse your heterosexual insecurities, while at the same time embracing the more minor agenda of the homosexual community. I will not allow what you do, nor will I reject America's interference into your private lives." He sidesteps the serious issues like that neighbor of mine whose feet I shoot at every weekend.

Plus, his wife's the ketchup lady. Electing him means being forced to sit through a thousand product placements for Heinz during national speeches, State of the Union addresses, and photo opportunities.

Worse than all of it, if we elect stringbean, he's going to start curbing back the military. Jesus H. Christ on a hobby horse, we're supposed to quit the one thing our country still does best? During three short years we've occupied two enemy countries, made threats and allegations against several others, and pissed off any possible allies we used to have. We rock! Give us one more term, I swear we'll annex Poland and get the French to apologize for getting us into Vietnam.

No more of this pacifistic, sanctions-filled bullshit of a Democratic regime. September 11 gave us a license to kill, and by god, it's only good for a limited time. Let's re-elect the president, reinstate the draft, and start inheriting the earth again.

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Tonight the city is packed like a cheap suitcase, my friends. It is brimming over with miserable, sweaty recluses, who sit naked in their stench-ridden plaster of Paris hovels like the penthouses of the damned. They spend their unfortunate lives brewing up Byzantine conspiracy theories like pots of runny black coffee, in an ass-clenching attempt to pass those painful small hours of the night's midsection, hours that cling and drag like a moss-covered gallstone. And not just tonight, no. Last night, as well. Most likely last Tuesday. Maybe other nights, it's hard to say.

True enough, there are still some intrepid dreamers who sniff glue or make Popsicle stick models of Eartha Kitt's gigantic ass when the boredom horn comes calling, cutting a crimson swath through their sleepwalking nightmare lives. But countless others have no hobbies at all, and instead attempt to break boredom's dark stranglehold by dreaming up improbable conspiracies galore, spiraling out into infinity with their paranoid cake-baking.

But the twisting corridors of this sickly web don't end there, good friend. This lonely waltz demands several more dancers to move their hips in and out when the suggestion is made, like freak-dancing mulatto robots. This latter-day ecosystem of conspiracy is made complete only by the existence of the noble dubunker, the conspiracy theorist's natural predator! Without debunkers, the conspiracy theorist population would grow wildly out of control, regenerating exponentially and savaging the natural cultural landscape. It would choke out all other indigenous lifetypes, like bad drivers and hypochondriacs. The beautiful diversity of nature would quickly and unceremoniously be destroyed, like a bedwetting puppy that was a gift from your ex-wife.

You might argue that this could be a good thing, especially the next time some sex-crazed zealot of questionable lineage backs his 4-Runner over the top of your humble sparkbox of a car, pausing only to spew a smoking stream of white-hot vitriol out his driver-side window before he peels out, and his bumper sticker tells you to go hump a penguin. But diversity is sustainability my friend, and without every variety of unfortunate asshole out there in the world, the whole circus tent would come down like a giant scale model of the Notre Dame cathedral, one made of lubricated dominoes.

Pluck one sphincter-searing malcontent from the beautiful mosaic of life and when your back is turned, six other varieties of life would disappear in the bat of a bat's eye. The nursemaid, the wax statue enthusiast, or the twice-baked grandmother, perhaps? Or could it be the surgeon, the Harley mechanic or the last unmolested boyscout? That's just the thing, my friends, the choice is not ours to make, and when we start yanking fibrous polybendanium stalks willy-nilly from the high-tech camping tent of nature, no one can say just what will come falling down around our ears next.

And what is life without the ammonia-scented wonders of nature? The dizzying variety of crawling, backward-twitching creation, a rancid, festering cornucopia of tropical ooze clogging our eye sockets like a pudding-thick discharge? Not a whole flaming lot. It's a couple of stale Styrofoam coffee cups rolling around on the floorboards of a cobalt blue 1985 Chevy Nova, friend, and personally I'm one who has been down that road before. You can have it. It only goes to Wisconsin.

So before you go to bed tonight, say a humble prayer of thanks to the noble debunker, for all too often they go unrecognized and unthanked. Yet regardless, they bravely trod forward, never once complaining. And when life leaves a steaming batch of road apples on their path, they make delicious apple pie.

And I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from that.

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