I could have clacked out quite a screamer, but I don’t get migraines and the due date had passed. Besides, armed with my name and address, the manufacturer would no doubt compound my pre-existing direct mail headache.

Glancing around, I noted colorful, engaging consumer traps throughout the waiting room. Every flat surface was cluttered with stand-up ads, brochures and tissue boxes, each with something to say about how healthy I could be, how sick I probably was or would be, and what I could take for it.

Even the magazine rack endorsed a pharmacy.

I was in good spirits already, but nothing tops the rush of a story idea. Stepping quickly to the window, I helped myself to several sheets of a Factive notepad.

Finally employing the Gentiva pen, I noticed its slogan was dead on: “Great healthcare has come home.” Nostalgic images of mother, quilts and syrup.

But before I could prowl more tabletops, a wall-mounted Healthy Advice (video-only) TV monitor snatched my attention. It warned that of the 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes, 60 cause cancer, so don’t smoke; that prepared foods have too much salt; and I’ll need good health to enjoy retirement — followed by a snippet on osteoporosis with a pointer to a cracked leg bone, inferring that non-ambulatory retirement would be a bummer.

Unthinkingly, I rubbed the shin I’d bruised the day before in a low table encounter. Understanding the ad game did not immunize me from instinct and reflex.

Back on TV, reflex became reflux in a Prevacid ad, then one for Topamax, so I wouldn’t have to write that migraine story. And say it ain’t so: cold and allergy season again?

Health Tip #19 warned not to deprive myself of healthy and satisfying snacks. Hopefully, my doctor was running behind so I could catch the other 18. For an instant I imagined #20 depicting an onion sandwich and beer, my small-town doctor’s favorite treatment for an adult head cold. But he was long dead and this captive-audience infomercial did not include home remedies.

Even if too young to read the screen, I’d have been mesmerized by the smooth animation, likeable cartoonish characters, bright contrasts and colors, nifty cuts and fades. But I knew it was there in part to make my waiting time seem shorter.

Disclaimers and warnings scrolled by, followed by office hours — probably signaling the end of loop. Maybe it would restart with Health Tip #1.

I was still scribbling notes when a nurse opened the door and called my name.

“Just a moment...”

Quickly signing the form, I handed the clipboard back through the window but kept the pen to feel better next time I was sick at home.

Weight down five pounds. Temp normal. But in the exam room my blood pressure was still bad, so the nurse set the cuff-squeezer on autopilot and left for other duties.

The interior face of the door (then closed) featured a poster for Viagra. While respectfully abbreviating erectile dysfunction as ED, the artwork featured a gently curled stethoscope, associating the product with professionalism and healing, while subliminally suggesting the flexible and limp.

Brilliant.

A Healthy Advice wall rack dominated the scene: Product brochures on Plavix, Lantus, Prevacid, Advair, with one slot sold out. Sickness brochures on migraines, osteoporosis, acid reflux, heart attack, stroke, constipation. And my favorite: a spiral-bound, laminated set of medical illustrations, cut-away tabbed so I could learn all about any body part in an instant. Medical school in a wallbox.

Still tethered to the blood pressure machine, I craned my neck to check out the other goodies: Tissue boxes from MicroTouch gloves and Zyrtec Syrup. Zithromax tongue depressors. A ThinPrep Imaging otoscope holder, nearly hidden behind a Lipitor stand-up ad. Fosamax brochures. Two calendars: Lunstar on the desktop and Tricor on the wall. Another clipboard, this one for FirstCyte Breast Testing.

Sinkside sat Aciphex soap and Allegra hand lotion. The Purell hand sanitizer looked store-bought, but you never know.

Room inventory complete, I recalled from my last visit a wall poster advising that a particular drug had side effects for which I might need this other drug. Nearly laughing aloud, I replayed the beauty counter scene from “The Best Years of Our Lives,” in which Peggy learns how to save money: Punctuating his lines with a jar of facial creme in each hand, Fred quips, “If you don’t put this on, you won’t need this to take it off.”

My white coat walked in with a befuddled frown. Blood pressure getting worse, despite change of meds from last time. She accepted my offer to keep a daily journal with my home cuff and the machine at Target.

We were both deeply concerned that, stroked out, I’d be no fun at all. Not only would I drool on the keyboard, but content would surely suffer.

Stethoscope time. My eyes cut to the Viagra poster as I sat erect, breathed on command and tried to keep a straight face.

My white coat left for the sample closet, returning with a Protonix bag containing two boxes of Tarka, one notch stronger than before. Just like at the car lot, you know it’s going to get expensive, but test drives are free.

Thanks, doc. Good to see you too. Stay well.

At the payment counter I set my Protonix bag on a matching calendar, between a Celebrex business card holder and an Actos cup full of various pharmaceutical pens, too many to inventory. The one I chose promoted Sonata and Skelaxin — not only a double-header, but gently triangular with a soft-touch grip. Cool.

The clerk was on the phone, so I leaned forward to admire the playful monkey on her Zyrtec clock, then quickly surveyed the office: More drug company calendars, cups, clipboards, notepads, highlighters, document holders, calculators, paper clip dispensers, an attractive desktop holder for something currently in use, and magnetic product ads holding up notices and reminders.

Accepting a new appointment card, I Skelaxined my check, retrieved my samples and walked out a happy man: two nifty pens, free meds and a story to tell.

Now if I just don’t stroke out ...