Not Natural
 
Okay, I need to start off by giving my awesome wife the credit due to her. Not only does she treat me much better than I probably deserve, but she’s also now giving me story ideas. This one is just kind of a side thought. For Valentine’s Day, my sweetie gave me this sort of goodie bag filled with all kinds of stuff from a couple of DVDs that I’ve been jonesin’ for, to some candy and whatnot. Among the assorted candy were these little mints that you can get at Target or something. But the thing is, they’ve got that “ginseng” and “ginko” stuff in them.
 
Now, I can never keep these things straight. I know one is supposed to help your energy and the other your memory or attention span or something. I’m just starting to wonder why in the hell it’s suddenly necessary to put this shit into everything. I think they did that with caffeine at one point too, and look what happened to that trend. The thing that’s bugging me about this ginseng / ginko thing is how much is this stuff gonna mess us all up when it’s suddenly in everything we eat and drink? Hell, at some point, somebody probably thought it’d be a good idea to put lead into a bunch of stuff. See how popular lead is nowadays? Yeah, nothing but a history of learning disabilities and making seeing shit difficult for Superman.
 
Okay, so we know that too much of anything is probably bad for you. What could happen if you had too much of that ginseng / ginko combo (and I know “ginko” is supposed to be followed by another word that I can’t remember but know is something like “Balboa” which I’m sure isn’t right. So it’s just “ginko” for now). If you OD’d on memory stuff, would it make your brain swell somehow? You’ve got to keep all that information somewhere, don’t ya? Or maybe you’d get so good with the memory thing that you could start remembering other people’s crap too, which actually might make you some kind of psychic.
 
Wait a sec, you know what’s going to happen now? Some freaking comic book writer is going to read this someday and I’ll bet you anything some new superhero will get his powers by being exposed to some kind of radioactive ginseng. And fuck that, because it was MY idea first. See? Ginseng and ginko are already ruining me, and I’m not even the guy that’s talking a whole bunch of supplements.
 
Damn, there’s another thing I just thought of, thanks to ESPN being on while I’m writing this. People are all pissed of that Barry Bonds has almost certainly taken steroids, right? Wouldn’t it be ironic if the same people that care about all those stats and whatnot were actually hopped up on “performance-enhancing” ginko and ginseng so they could remember all that dorky shit to begin with? Yeah, bunch of pasty, double standard using dorks.
 
But you know, I still think there could be a couple of good uses for ginko (which I just looked up and is the memory stuff). How about putting some of that into beer? Yeah, I think that’s probably the best use for it. Now you can drink all you want and never have to worry about blacking out. Remember everything just fine, right down to kneeling at the throne of the porcelain god. Never have to wonder again how you ended up in bed with your buddy’s gal. Shit, I might even try to get someone to start making Jim Beam with Ginko, although that may not be the best idea since a lot of people drink harder stuff to try and forget things on purpose.
 
Now I’m actually starting to wonder if my wife put those mints in there on purpose, like she thinks I need to start watching my memory or something. You know, our anniversary’s coming up, now that I think about it. That’s got to be why she did it. Trying to make sure I remember the anniversary so I get her something nice.
 
Well shit, it worked.

Fingers O'Reilly is a frequent contributor to the footnote. In his spare time, he drinks beer.