Brand X (or Y) (or maybe ZZZZZZZ)

The makers of OxyContin just got fined for "misbranding" a narcotic. Sheeesh, can you imagine getting addicted to a legally available narcotic? Aren't you shocked? The company is being fined $600 million, and three executives are getting punished to the tune of $34.5 million, for misrepresenting the potential for addiction.

Frankly, I'm worried. (Ever notice when someone, especially at work, says "frankly," he or she is following with a lie?)

Am I next? Will the Feds come after me for misbranding The Laughorist? In my banner at the top of my web log, I proclaim ex cathedra:

A venue for solipsistic eavesdroppers, verbal voyeurs, and hoarse whisperers.

Well, let's do a little examen of conscience:

Is The Laughorist a venue? True enough.

Is The Laughorist for "solipsistic eavesdroppers"? I'll go along with the "eavesdroppers" part, but I confess I'm the one all too typically solipsistic. (Eavesdropper? What the heck is the origin of that word? See preceding link.)

"Verbal voyeurs"? I'm all for voyeurism, verbal or otherwise, but are you? Yes, you viewers are playing peek-a-boo under the eaves of my inner brain, or loins, such as it is; such as they are (or was; were).

"Hoarse whisperers"? Fair enough. One can get hoarse and easily lose one's voice amid the flood and flotsam of miasmic hordes of words, words, words.

But the biggest question of branding vs. misbranding is this:

Does The Laughorist live up to his self-anointed, self-appointed name, namely: blend laughs with aphorisms? Is he one who is a humorist + aphorist?

Alas, only part of the time. Just as often The Laughorist is simply only one paltry, plebeian, morose, or raunchy voice amid the many thongs (oops, I mean, throngs) out in Cyberville. He might even more accurately be sporting one of these monikers: The Grammaticist, or The Solipsist, or The Redactorist.

Remember "We, The Ephemerists"?

So sue me.

Sue me for misbranding.

But don't fine me.

I'm no narcotic misbrander. I might put you to sleep sometime, but addictively narcotic?

I hope I am at least a mild stimulant at least some of the time, if not laughoristically laxative most of the time.

Ever Yours, etc.

Pawlie Kokonuts, Esq.

p.s. Why doesn't the firm that got fined come out with a new product, call it Acci-InContinent? What a pisser!