Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I think all that 24/7 advertising by drug companies for the growing number of available "male enhancement" products may pose hidden problems. According to a couple of my usually reliable sources a nationwide dating service that specializes in the 'single senior's scene' has hacked into the pharmacy computer records of a well-known national drugstore chain and is providing its female members, on a matching zip code basis, with lists of men taking Viagra regularly. (Ditto for Levitra and Cialis.)

Seems that the chain's state-of-the-art computer not only accepts a refill order on its voice mail, but also calls the patient back when the prescription is ready to be picked up. With this information in hand it's an easy matter for a distaff member of the group to reconnoiter the counter, getting, so to speak, the lay of the land, then "accidentally" bumping into the guy and striking up a conversation as he wanders around the parking lot trying to find his car.

The key element in this protocol is that, for the most part, these encounters take place in the daytime when men are awake. This is an extraordinary window of opportunity, because in the evening men are usually to be found drifting off in front of the television (unless they're watching a ball game).

A person familiar with the operation and speaking on condition of anonymity said: "So far the plan seems to be working out quite well; four couples have moved in together, seven are steady-dating and only one heart attack has been reported."

We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out. I'll keep you posted.

Most people conversant in Yiddish, no matter how learned, have trouble explaining the true depth of meaning conveyed by the word: Chutzpah. Sure we all know that it means nerve, nerve so outrageous as to be beyond the pale; beyond any type of erudite definition; beyond ……well, perhaps only an example such as this will hit the mark: In early July a gentleman with the unlikely name of Ian Fleming printed a couple of bogus checks on his computer and managed to cash them - one for $350 and the other for $1300 - at a Commerce Bank branch on Queens Boulevard in New York.

Buoyed by his success and running out of money by the end of the week, Mr. Fleming decided to give it another shot. Marching into same bank with two checks again drawn on the same JPMorgan Fleming Fund (an international asset-management fund), only this time one draft was for $6 billion and the other for $5 billion.

"Red flags went up pretty quickly," said bank spokesman David Flaherty, and the checks were not cashed by the alert staff.

The 007 wannabe was picked up in September when the bank discovered it had pictures of Mr. Fleming on a video record from his first fraudulent bite of the apple. According to the police Fleming allegedly confessed and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. This latest arrest comes a month after the con artist was busted in Long Island for trying to pay off some personal debts with $138,000 of counterfeit checks. Guess money just doesn't go as far as it used to.