Did you ever have a particular phrase fly into your ear and buzz around inside your head until your brain cells, all three of them, screamed "STOP" in unison? If not, then you haven’t been focusing.

There is a TV commercial which has been around for quite some time now, and there is a phrase in that commercial which is so patently absurd that it defies all logic. It is so absurd, in fact, that you can’t forget it. Yes, I refer to that abominable Focus Factor commercial.

There are several "brain support supplements" on the market, with compelling names like Focus Factor, Constant Focus, Attend, Lucidal, Think Dammital, and OUCH! These products all claim to offer a combination of vitamins, minerals and owl extract which will restore lost brain function, rehabilitate your memory, and allow you to focus for hours at a time, until your head actually starts to throb with electronic impulses so powerful that you can change TV channels without using your remote.

But where was I? Oh ... the odious phrase. I’m getting to that. First, if you remember (or even if you don’t) the Focus Factor commercial, a strange looking guy with a goofy page boy haircut introduces himself as Rob Graham, President and CEO of Vital Basics, which is the official name of the vitamin supplement company selling the Focus Factor pills. Now, if you’ve paid close attention (focused), you’ve noticed that Mr. Graham, who takes daily intravenous doses of Focus Factor himself, has eye problems. His right eye is staring intently into the camera as it should be, but the other one seems to be examining something on the wall to his left. Possibly a fly. And even though there’s something slightly disconcerting about a guy with Wandering Eye Syndrome hawking a product called Focus Factor, you can make allowances. Maybe before he started taking his powerful brain support formula, Mr. Graham simply sat around, walleyed, sniffing his own armpits and drooling.

But I digress. The hook to this commercial is that the generous people at Vital Basics will actually send you a $75 bottle of Focus Factor ABSOLUTELY FREE, with a minimal fee of just $4.95 to cover shipping and handling. No wait, don’t get distracted by just why somebody at Vital Basics feels the need to "handle" your pills. Focus!

There, that’s better. Now where were we? Ah, yes, the commercial. I remember. Apprised of this amazing offer, several non-actor types, wandering around outside drugstores, flea markets, and adult bookstores, yearning for focus, seem genuinely moved by the firm’s generosity. Finally–and here’s where the phrase that drives me nuts comes in–a woman who looks a lot like the cousin nobody in the family talks about shows up, knits her brow, and focuses. She focuses directly into the camera with both eyes and squeals, "They let you try it for FREE? It must be good!" She delivers the line with feverish excitement, as though she’d just discovered her own navel.

And since I first heard "FREE? It must be good!" I’ve been haunted by that jarring juxtaposition of words. The phrase makes my head feel like it’s going to explode. I think about the woman’s bizarre logic, and imagine her chirping in her own good-hearted, simple-minded way, "HEMORRHOIDS? They must be fun!" Or worse, "RABBIT PELLETS? They must be delicious!"

Some interesting Internet sites revealed that–SURPRISE–the manufacturers of Focus Factor and another product, V-Factor (for male enhancement) were forced to pay a $1 million settlement in response to a suit for fraudulent advertising brought by the Federal Trade Commission in 2004. Other sites provided long lists of vitriolic customer complaints. It seems that the Vital Basics people focused their fertile brains on sending customers that original "free" $4.95 bottle of Focus Factor, and then extracting copious amounts of money from their accounts, ranging from a $34.95 monthly "Preferred Customers Club" fee to hundreds of dollars for additional pills which hadn’t been ordered. Apparently once the unsuspecting customers called for their free bottles of Focus Factor, they gave away the keys to their bank accounts and the rights to their firstborn male children. Almost without exception these ex-customers said that Focus Factor did not actually help them focus at all, and that their brains were every bit as useless as they’d been before they tried the stuff. Here’s a typical complaint:

They sent me my free $4.95 focus pills and then the Tidal Basin people or whatever they call thereselves tok $199.50 from my checking account for three extra bottles of pills which I didnt want becase that the frist ones didnt do me any good. They all so took out $34.95 from out of my account useing my debut card number for member ship dues which has come out for three months now. My rent check bounced and I coudnt pay my electrical bill and so it was cut off. And they never even sent me them three extra bottles or refuned my money neither. It is all very confuseing, and agravational, and my head hurts worser now then ever. And them pills they all so gave me gas.

Another dissatisfied customer put it this way: