True Story©... The Pill Mill
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I would love the opportunity to say that “y’know, shit has been kinda quiet here lately,” but my life just isn’t set up for things to go that smoothly. While I would love to be able to take solace in no one ringing my phone as much as I DETEST phone conversations with anyone other than my brother, I legitimately hate unannounced pop-up visitors more than I do phone calls. I mean, I work from home and don’t get fully dressed most days so I tend to make it so most people don’t even know where I actually live whenever possible.
You know who does know where I live, whether I like it or not? Greensboro Police Department.
Not because I am personally some kind of criminal – Moe Phillips is none of their fucking business – but due to a weird series of prior interactions that have been documented here in pages of True Story©…
That said, I am minding the business that ACTUALLY pays me in my bottom-front room facing my driveway and street so I can watch the world outside my front door, when an unmarked Ford Taurus comes to a stop in front of my driveway.
“Ahhh, fuck” I thought as I went upstairs, opened the big door and locked the screen door and let the glass down to expose the screen.
[Phlip note: I been watching a lot of YouTube videos about cops doing the foot-in-the-door thing to force interactions with people lately]
It was my old pal Detective Ramsbottom… I still ain’t unlock that fuckin door.
Ramsbottom: “Afternoon, Phillip.”
Me: “If my Wife Person™ comes home and finds you here, she digging two holes.”
Ramsbottom: “Huh?”
Me: “Nothin’… what’s up?”
Ramsbottom: “As we discussed a while back, Detective Woodc–…”
Me: “… WOODPENIS!”
Ramsbottom: “Must we?”
Me: “I mean, I could close this door and go the fuck back downstairs.”
Ramsbottom (exasperated): “Detective Woodpenis told me I could call on you if I needed another brain on a flummoxing case.”
Me: "Sir, this is an unsolicited visit, not a call.”
He had a piece of paper in his hand.
Ramsbottom: “It is a bit more than I could comfortably explain over the phone.”
He held the papers up for me to see.
Me: “Is that a warrant signed by a judge with my name and address on it?”
Ramsbottom: “No.”
Me: “Then slide it under the door.”
Ramsbottom: “Wow.”
Me: “I ain’t into letting cops inside my house for any reason.”
Ramsbottom: “Fine”
I should mention here that my dogs were absolutely calm for this whole exchange, which in my mind means Detective Ramsbottom is clearly a good dude, but I still ain’t opening this door.
On the papers, I saw—… Fuck it…
Me: “So you had several 20somethings land in the emergency room with weird cardiac symptoms; panic-level heart rates and blood pressure in otherwise undiagnosed and very healthy people. Okay?”
Ramsbottom: “Keep reading.”
Me: “… none of these individuals had any family history indicating any such a thing as a foreseeable problem and–… so the fuck WHAT!?”
Ramsbottom: “Please keep reading.”
Me: “… all symptoms subsided naturally after 3 hours of observation and patients were discharged describing feeling as if ‘nothing had happened’.”
Ramsbottom: “Mmhmm.”
Me: “And tests on ALL patients returned a same combination of chemicals, consistent with EVERY known male enhancement product.”
Ramsbottom: “That part.”
Me: “So they took a cocktail of gas station dick pills and had a reaction.”
Ramsbottom: “This is where it gets interesting. ER doctors notified us of the issues at hand because it seemed unseemly and–…”
Me: “And that shit a HIPAA violation?”
Ramsbottom: “Not with the peoples’ permission to discuss it. You don’t have names since they didn’t authorize YOU.”
Me: “Good, because I would have JOKES for a 20something whose life has already been so hard that they need dick pills.”
Ramsbottom: “Can we PLEASE not?”
Me: “There’s a certain poetry to a detective whose name loosely translates to ‘vigorous buttsex’ being assigned a dick pills case.”
Ramsbottom: “Look, I wanted the case about a diner owner getting robbed, but the owner ain’t cooperating and this came up next.”
Me: “Holy shit.”
Ramsbottom: “Right.”
Me: “So we know, here… You are GOING to get these dick jokes.”
Ramsbottom: “I’m learning that it comes with the territory.”
Me: “Good, now what is the name of this product and where are they getting them?”
Ramsbottom: “…”
Me: “Cat got your tongue?”
Ramsbottom: “It’s–… it’s just…”
Me: “It sounds like it’s just you want me to close this door and go back downstairs to YouTube.”
Ramsbottom: “They’re called ‘Dig Bick Throbbers’ and they all got them from a small gas station over on North Church near Browns Summit.”
Me: “'Dig… Bick… Throbbers'… That is the FUNNIEST shit I have heard all week.”
Ramsbottom: “I really did not want this case.”
Me: “Well we got it now. I’mmma go downstairs and get back to work. I have your card and will hit you when I know something.”
As expected, the Dig Bick Throbbers were right there front and center, more prominently displayed than any of the competing products. In a fit of embarrassment, I said to the clerk “lemme get one of those Big Dick Throbber packs” and he quickly corrected me “that’s Dig Bick” before adding them to my total.
I went on about the task of cutting my client’s yard and when I got home, I looked at any identifying information on the package.
When I say this shit was COMEDY hour, I am not exaggerating. It was if Moe Phillips had written the description of this shit; flirting with copyright infringement. There were words like “Viagrous,” “Sildenafillic” and “Cialic” to describe the product’s effectiveness. I had to Google – on Incognito Mode – the names of the ingredients to surmise their supposed benefits and more importantly their side effects. As Ramsbottom had described they had basically taken the “active” ingredient in EVERYTHING on the display at the gas station before ordering them from Mexico or China and compounding them into tablets, probably in someone’s basement. Not that the address or the company name on the packaging led to anything more than a confusing web of dead ends.
“This motherfucker really got me in here doing his job for him” went through my mind as I did all this. No worries, though. I will more than make up for it when I start calling in favors off this shit later. He don’t e’em know it.
For now, though, I got a phonecall to make…
With that, we concluded our call and he hung up…
When I say this shit was COMEDY hour, I am not exaggerating. It was if Moe Phillips had written the description of this shit; flirting with copyright infringement. There were words like “Viagrous,” “Sildenafillic” and “Cialic” to describe the product’s effectiveness. I had to Google – on Incognito Mode – the names of the ingredients to surmise their supposed benefits and more importantly their side effects. As Ramsbottom had described they had basically taken the “active” ingredient in EVERYTHING on the display at the gas station before ordering them from Mexico or China and compounding them into tablets, probably in someone’s basement. Not that the address or the company name on the packaging led to anything more than a confusing web of dead ends.
“This motherfucker really got me in here doing his job for him” went through my mind as I did all this. No worries, though. I will more than make up for it when I start calling in favors off this shit later. He don’t e’em know it.
For now, though, I got a phonecall to make…
Ramsbottom: “What have you found.”
Me: “We either got some elite-level comedians or some idiot-savants here.”
Ramsbottom: “How so?”
Me: “Well your hunch that they had just stuck everything they THOUGHT would work into one pill was right.”
Ramsbottom: “Okay…”
Me: “But they apparently know they’re bunk, so—… Who exactly is regulating the gas station dick pill market?”
Ramsbottom: “They position themselves as ‘supplements’ so basically nobody.”
Me: “Well that is fucky.”
Ramsbottom: “Not until there is real harm done, which our current situation could be classified as.”
Me: “Well that store owner was quick to correct me when I mispronounced ‘Dig Bick’ so I am willing to bet that he is involved either directly or financially.”
Ramsbottom: “And everyone who came into the ER said they got it from THAT store.”
Me: “Well it is time for you to do some policing; like the kind that comes from access to shit I ain’t got on Google.”
Ramsbottom: “I guess so.”
Me: “I gues call me if you got anything else you might need me to help with.”
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