Are You Experienced?

This edition of The State of the Union originally appeared on April 4, 2003.

Can we stop lying to ourselves?

I had to go see my doctor the other day because the prescription for my allergy drugs had expired, and apparently doctors actually want to see you in person before they agree to scribble on the little sheet of paper that lets you buy your drugs again.

After I made my appointment, the receptionist, noting the date of my most recent checkup, informed me that my doctor and his cohorts had moved to a new office since I’d last visited, and asked if I needed directions.  I did.

She dispensed the requisite navigatory and parking information, and informed me that I would then traverse a walkway that would lead me to the “Center for Advanced Medicine.”  The new office was on the 13th floor.

Trying my best not to think about the fact that this “Center for Advanced Medicine” even had a 13th floor, I got to thinking about the name of the place itself.  What exactly is a “Center for Advanced Medicine”?  I mean, isn’t that a . . . hospital?  Or did I miss something, and have standard hospitals now been relegated to “Center for Ordinary Medicine” status?  I was confused, but determined to find out.

The appointment, in case you were worried, went well -- Todd the nurse practitioner and I got along famously (though I was a bit unnerved by how eagerly and how readily he loaded me up with free drug samples) -- and I was back at the reception desk in no time, prescription in hand, ready to validate my parking pass and be dismissed.

And there I came upon a woman eating green olives from a small glass jar.  She fished them out with the pointy end of a plastic knife.  “I can’t stop eating these things,” she said, a guilty look on her face. 

“Well,” I shrugged, “I guess if they were bad for you, one of the doctors here would have made you stop, right?”

She shrugged back.  “I guess so.”

As she poked into the jar for another, I noticed that her eyes were, well, not to put too fine a point on it, bulging out of her head.  Could mainlining green olives do that to you?  After a moment’s deliberation, I decided it would be indiscreet to ask, and asked this question instead:

“So what exactly makes this a ‘Center for Advanced Medicine’?”

“Well,” she said, swallowing the olive, “there’s a lot of doctor’s offices in the building.”

Oh, okay.  Well, that cleared up nothing, so when I got home, I went online to see if I could find something a bit more substantial.  I found this:  “The Center for Advanced Medicine opened its doors in Fall '01 to a new way of caring for patients -- multispecialty consultation, diagnostics, medical treatment, same-day surgery and support services, all in one convenient location.”  Hmm . . . diagnostics, medical treatment, surgery.  Sounds a lot like a . . . hospital.

Now, admittedly, I don’t know exactly what all those things mean, and I suppose there’s something to be said for having them all in one convenient location, whatever they are, but still . . . what’s so advanced about it?  If anything, with all that stuff in one place, I think “Medical Mall” would be a more apt moniker.  I’m sure there’s a food court in there somewhere.

But no, it’s the “Center for Advanced Medicine” because we, as a society, just aren’t comfortable with simplicity and honesty anymore.  Euphemisms -- “the substitution of a mild or indirect expression for one thought to be offensive or blunt,” as my dictionary defines them -- are everywhere usurping common sense.

Which means that not only are good people like myself being robbed of the simple joy of just going to the hospital, we’re being asked to smile and nod at these nonsense names at every turn.

If you’ve been watching the NCAA basketball tournament this last month, you’ve no doubt seen the commercials declaring that Pontiac makes the “Official Performance Machines of the NCAA.”  I know, I know -- you hear that, and you immediately think, “Pontiac is making vibrators?”  But no.  They still just make cars.  Only they’re unsatisfied with calling them cars.  Or vehicles.  Or even automobiles. 

Is this a self-esteem thing?  Does Pontiac feel better about itself because its products are “performance machines” instead of “cars”?  Or do they just think we’re that stupid, and that we’ll be impressed by their clever terminology?

If it’s the latter, I suppose we can’t blame them for questioning our intelligence -- after all, “Fear Factor” is still a top-ten ratings hit.  And perhaps this explains why Pontiac has so much company in employing the strategy.

For example, Papa John’s makes a pretty good pizza.  But if you look at the delivery sticker on the box, you’ll see that it reads, “Your Pizza Experience managed by Rufus” -- or whoever it is that pulled rank on the rest of the delivery guys that night.  Only problem is, Papa John, I didn’t order a friggin’ “pizza experience” -- I ordered a pizza.  Get over yourself.

And while you’re at it, take Gatorade with you.  Not content with a nameless squeeze bottle, they dubbed their 24 oz. container “The E.D.G.E.” -- an acronym for Ergonomically Designed Gatorade Experience.

Please.

Spare me your “Sales Event,” okay?  It’s a sale.  Enough with “Administrative Assistant’s Day” -- it’s Secretary’s Day.  And no more “pre-owned,” if you don’t mind.  It’s used.

Seriously, we need to put a stop to this, before it starts affecting our quality of life.  Personally, I’m worried that such euphemizing has already crept into the highest levels of our government.  Oh, sure, we expect to hear “collateral damage” instead of the more blunt “civilian deaths.”  But the one that really has me troubled is “weapons of mass destruction.”

When the President says, “weapons of mass destruction,” what does he mean?  He doesn’t mean chemical or biological weapons, because whenever he wants to talk about chemical or biological weapons, he says chemical or biological weapons.  What other kind of weapons of mass destruction are we talking about, then?

I’m no military expert, but it seems to me we’re talking about nuclear weapons.  And maybe I shouldn’t be, but I’m a bit unnerved by the suspicion I have that “weapons of mass destruction” has become the accepted vernacular because the White House communications staff (C.J., Toby, Josh, and that new guy) doesn’t want the President saying “nuclear weapons,” because that would involve him saying “nuclear” -- which he pronounces “newk-ya-lur.” 

But then, maybe I’m just being paranoid.  Maybe the President really just keeps using that phrase because that’s the name of the rock band his twin daughters have started up, and he wants them to have a ton of name recognition when their album is released.

I hear they sound a lot like the White Stripes.