If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, and I mean, even a day or two, you would understand why there aren’t more advertisers beating down the door of my email inbox, offering me products to sample and review. Perhaps it was my blog post about my Aunt Gertie being a ho that turns Madison Avenue off, or maybe the one about manatees catching STDs. The post where I let readers vote on whether or not that thing growing on my face was cancer or Mitt Romney got a lot of traffic, but probably not a lot of confidence from the marketing people.

So it was really weird when the people at Vick’s offered me a new-fangled thermometer to try. The only tie-ins I can think of are my very recent post about being so sick I pee when I cough, or a much older post about not being able to remember which of our family’s thermometers is the rectal one, and just having to play thermometer roulette when illness strikes.

The best part about their offer of a free Star Trek-style thermometer is it arrived only days into my illness, so it really was perfect timing. Well played, Vicks.

Thought Number One: I couldn’t get the package open. I have no idea why they childproofed it, unless it’s just standard company policy for anything made by Vicks. My 12-year-old had to help me, and even then, she had to stab it with a knife over and over. Or maybe she was just enjoying the stabby motions. She is my kid, after all.

Thought Number Two: It looks like a vibrator. A purse-sized model. I didn’t know Vicks made those.

Thought Number Three: Nope, still looks like a vibrator.

Thought Number Four: Why are there three “on” buttons? Oh wait, only this one is the “on” button. This other one is the “make it work” button. I still don’t know what the third one is for.

Thought Number Five: Do we have any Cheetos?

Thought Number Six: “I AM testing the new product, thank you very much! Don’t you have homework to be doing???”

Thought Number Seven: Okay, let’s try this baby out.

I lined up the family to be my hapless guinea pigs. I stuck this thing behind each squirming, uncooperative child’s ear and pressed the button. Like I said, it’s all very Star Trekky. It looks like how the bad guy alien sneaks up on people in the Turbo Lift and injects them with a poison that is so instantaneous the victim drops to the floor immediately, giving the bad guy alien enough time to stash the body in one of the wall panels before the Lift doors open.

I am sad to say that no one in my household is a solid 98.6 degrees, including my 95-degree youngest child and the 99-degree dog. I was a solid 97, with some decimal thrown in. The thermometer doesn’t seem to have an off switch, so it sat there staring at me for a few more minutes. Now if only vibrators didn’t have an off switch, that’s a product I could get behind.