There was a cautious welcome yesterday for news that over-the-counter sales of a new morning-after pill will go ahead. The pill, which reverses the effects of misconceived comments before they grow and eventually acquire a life of their own, is mainly aged at men aged 25 to 55 and is said to be almost completely effective.
The pill works by making the patient do whatever is necessary to counteract what he said the night before in a passionate moment of unprotected speech. It can even work before the first giveaway twinges of embarrassment are felt or reproachful texts start to come in.
Les Freitag, Sales Director at manufacturers Wizer, said, ‘Take Steve from Marketing, who after a few drinks on Friday night declares his undying love to Wendy from Compliance. When he gets home to face his angry wife, he insults her looks and breeding before saying he is leaving her for Wendy. When he eventually wakes up on the sofa and also recalls abusing his boss, he realises it’s too late for precautions, the seeds have all been planted.’
Freitag explained how Steve would take one of the new pills before phoning a relieved Wendy to apologise for his appalling behaviour. Instead of ineffective tongue-tied regret he withdraws his lovelorn declarations but agrees to satisfy all her compliance demands in future, exchanging a doomed fling for a long-term, casual relationship of cold, mechanical and blissful sex. This pill would taste sweet, as would the one making him text his boss to say his remark had only been a clumsy opener to what he really wanted to say, which was that the new branding initiatives were terrific and how about a bonus.
The third pill would be very bitter and hard to swallow, even after Steve had removed his foot from his mouth, but would stop him making things even worse by joking he’d been so drunk he thought she was her mother, instead committing to a Champneys membership and a week in Dubai accompanied by said mother.
While the normally reactionary Mail welcomed the development, Cosmopolitan said it would discourage men from taking sensible precautions and they should learn to say ‘no’, a view supported by pro-wife campaigners who said that the ability to reverse misspeaking episodes deprived women of the satisfaction of revenge using conventional means such as scissors and an expensive divorce.
The pill is even thought to be effective for politicians, with Freitag saying a certain cyclist would still be in a job had he taken his pill instead of throwing it at a passing pleb in a fit of arrogance when he thought nobody was looking.