Life Changing Capsule

The other night I fell asleep with the TV on. Groggy and in a dreamless state between unconsciousness and faint cognition I heard a voice on the TV say, "life changing capsule". Being a child of the Space Race my imagination was immediately whisked away to an earlier time in my life. A black & white memory of a freckle faced 2nd grader on a playground adventure, staring into the sky with his bald headed friend whose baldness was caused by a disease that was named after a river that flows through Pittsburgh. A youngster dumbstruck with excitement and the notion that a man was strapped to a space capsule, speeding high above the earth, in orbit (whatever that was).

Managing to finally pry my eyes open I half expected to see a promo for a Discovery Channel documentary about America's early space program. A show of the "Right Stuff" I had witnessed personally as a child along with an amazed nation. But when the blear faded all I saw was the face of a young, eager looking man, making a sales pitch for one of those "male enhancement" pills. In an instant I came to realize that since the time of our first space flights, America had eventually redefined the meaning of machismo.