Just Don’t Do It

I think most of us stared at our televisions in utter disbelief the other night when the president struggled through several pronunciations of acetaminophen; acid and metaphin, and aseeda well um let’s see how we do.  Phonetic spelling anyone? Desperately needed.  Some of his other zingers include Two Corinthians, no It’s Second Corinthians, not Two Corinthians.  Bragging he’s being, like, really smart. Or the World War II General “Douglas Magarth.”  

To quote Stephen Sondheim from Into the Woods, careful the things you say children will listen.  Adults do too.  So the other night when he proclaimed Tylenol to be dangerous, it is bad, don’t take it, just don’t do it, no more Tylenol and so on and so on.  I kept wondering if RFK, Jr. was gonna jump in with a smidge of supporting documentation to these out of left field declarations.  But the problem is, until he actually clears the bulky phlegm out of his throat, no one can understand him either.

So I got to thinking, what if RFK, Jr. was actually denouncing phenobarbital but it came out sounding like Tylenol.  This sort of slip could seriously cost lives.  Sure ladies, take it up a notch with the barbiturates for pain but steer clear of that evil Tylenol.  I guess when you have a spasmodic dysphonia throat condition, god knows what the truth is or isn’t or could be or was intended to be.

Pregnant women, be safe and toughen it out through fever or flu. Don’t be a wuss and play Russian Roulette with autism, though there’s less than zero science to support such a claim.  But that’s not the point.  If the prez finally learned how to pronounce acetaminophen correctly, we gotta promote the theory.  He worked so hard.

Changing the script now could bring up a rabies and babies fiasco.