There sometimes comes a time in a man’s life when it’s necessary to stop being a vegetarian and hammer down a juicy steak. A time when it's alright to peel off the "Make Love, Not War" sticker and go hunting. And not for deer or water buffalo; not even for elephants. We’re talking BIG game. Simba. T-Rex. Godzilla.

It was that time for me.

I’ve been watching countless adult videos, trying sexual products and toys, and ingesting just about every imaginable substance even remotely thought to increase sex drive to please my lovely wife and enhance our lusty ways. But one sunny LA day I had before me a product that promised more. Just feast your eyes on this delectable temptation:

Boost your favorite cologne with powerful sex attractants! This unscented formula is packed with pheromones, your body’s silent “sex signals.” We’ve magnified the potency a hundred-fold to pump up your sexual magnetism…At last, an unscented pheromone attractant! Boost the sexual power of your own favorite cologne/perfume with this great fragrance-free roll-on. This exciting UNISEX elixir actually combines powerful pheromones with your natural body chemistry and your favorite cologne/perfume to attract the opposite sex. Just apply wherever you like and your scent will be infused with powerful sexual signals. No one will know... but they’ll definitely be interested! Elegant vial with roll-on top comes with black velvet drawstring bag

This magical pheromone potion promised to make me irresistible to women! ALL women. I would suddenly be transformed from my utterly forgettable, ho-hum self into a babe magnet. Casanova. Robert Redford. BRAD PITT! I couldn’t part with the $12.95 fast enough. I even paid an extra 10 bucks for overnight shipping.

Yeah, OK, so I’m married. Happily for 11 years now. Why would I want to suddenly rock the boat by becoming human Velcro for the LA babes to stick to? How the heck should I know? Anyway, I didn’t plan to act on any of it – just throw it back in my wife’s face and remind her that she’s married to a stud. Worship me, dammit! Look at all the wondrous women I COULD be getting and kneel down before your king! And get dinner on the table. And I see dust on that back shelf,  and…

Whew. Getting a little carried away, I think.

Nevertheless, my little bottle arrived the following day and I was ready to spray my way to nympho nirvana. But where to go? The beach? Nah, the salt air might dilute my odiferous girl gill net or, even worse, attract some flounders in with the dolphins. Where could I go that would guarantee I’d be surrounded by the finest femmes LA had to offer in an enclosed environment of erogenous effervescence? Of course – Gold’s gym. The “Mecca of Bodybuilding.” Specifically the one class guaranteed to grant a gargantuan payoff – Tito Raymond’s Wednesday night kickboxing class. An hour packed with sweaty babes wearing tight tank tops and form-fitting fashions. I’d have them crawling lustily close within the first song and my wife beating them off with a barbell midway through. By night’s end, the dishes would be done, my shirts ironed, and my wife strip teasing to Livin’ La Vida Loca.

And as my plan took shape, the ultimate end-game became cunningly clear. After driving the damsels crazy with desire, I would land the loveliest of the lot – Amy. Amy Fadhli. Former Miss Fitness and model/babe extraordinaire. Blonde, rock hard body, sinfully sunny personality, she was to be my unwitting victim in my quest for machismo redemption and wifely hero worship. True, I risked being crushed by Amy’s hubby-to-be Tito, the hunk/bodybuilder/kickboxing instructor himself; but as I said before – I was after BIG GAME. And the game didn’t come any better than Amy. Tito would just have to accept his place below his Highness, Sir Studalot. And besides, I planned to let her down easy and give Tito a break before any real serious damage occurred (would it be my fault that the spell my new scent cast was impossible to resist?). Heck, I was even going to give him a couple of sprays to even the playing field. Am I just the greatest?

In my car, anxiously awaiting 5:30pm to roll around, I applied my first dose. And then doubled it up.

As I entered the gym, I tried to stay as far away from the peripheral women (those lifting weights, stretching, etc.) as I could; no use starting a stampede before I gave Amy first whiff, I  figured. I quickly made my way to Tito’s class, timing my entrance five minutes early to get into optimum position to take advantage of air flow, electric fan direction, humidity, and barometric pressure, etc. And, of course, to stake out my position near Amy. Unfortunately, she typically occupies the  spot right next to Tito in the front of the class, so I had to bump her over and take that spot myself. This would prove odd in two ways, one, I’m afflicted with “white man’s disease,” so I was risking ridicule being in such a prominent spot and two, with Amy all but guaranteed to be climbing all over yours truly, I could imagine one of Tito’s roundhouse kicks finding its way to my chin and sending me flying though the emergency exit. But in the first case, I knew my pheromone shield would simply blind all of the women to my frantic gyrations and they’d see me as Tony Manero, instead of Tony the Tiger and as for the roundhouse kick, I knew Amy would leap to my rescue and take the brunt for me. Remember, this stuff was magnified a hundred-fold. I was confident that just the hint of harm would probably bring 25 women to my defense. Even mighty Tito would eventually fall like William Wallace to the Brits, no matter how good a fight he put up.

And in they came. There was Jenny, the tanned and toned Japanese goddess from a faraway land and Celeste, my "chocolate delight," a stunning African American woman of amorous abundance I flirted with on occasion. And Chelsea, and Lisa, and Sandra, and the list went on and on. I'll be darned if my wife wasn't looking pretty hot herself! I was now immersed in an ethereal estuary of estrogen, intoxicated by the feminine fog surrounding me. It was as close to pure bliss as a man can get. And I was now a supercharged slayer sprayed and ready for BIG GAME. And as I was peaking on my pheromone-fueled hallucinogenic  trip through fitness nirvana, in she walked. Actually, it was more like floated. Either way, there stood Amy. Slipping out of her oversized sweat top to take her position at the head of the class, I lined her up in my cross hairs and got ready to fire.

The music started and Tito shouted us to attention. The temperature of the class began to rise and the sweat started flowing. I could feel the pheromones pumping my pecks to warp factor 4, 5, 6… warp factor 10 BABY! I was at my maximum babe busting best. I slowly moved myself into the path of the fan and put my super stink into Amy’s nostrils. She looked at me and SMILED. She never did that before. Emboldened, I threw my jabs with renewed vigor and dared to party like it’s 1999. The smiles on the women’s faces said it all – I had ARRIVED. Jenny, Celeste, and all the rest wanted me bad! My pheromone cologne was igniting the fuse and the class was now boogying down to my personal beat. Wife? What wife? I was the king of class, the sultan of sex, the Hermes of hedonism. Just look at all those babes faces, smiling, laughing, and… wait a second.

Laughing? Did I say laughing? What were they laughing at?

And then it all became crushingly clear. They were all laughing at ME. My pheromone force field had been breached. My cloking device was failing and I was standing there, naked at the front of the class, no Chief Engineer Scott in sight, no pheromone spray to prop up my protection. I was gyrating frantically like some poor fish in a net with no escape route and the class was packed. And worse, Amy was totally oblivious to my existence from the minute she walked in. My wife, a few spots over, was looking at me perplexed, as she still wasn’t aware that I had sprayed myself silly before coming to class. In fact, NO ONE was aware that I had applied it. I had worked myself into some sort of demented mental state of delusion and hadn’t realized that this product was a bunch of BS. What the heck was I thinking? Sweat was suddenly pouring over me (and not from the workout) and I needed out. Move to the back of the class? Too obvious. Fake a bathroom break? That’s seemed the most logical move, so I calmly made my way toward the exit and hurried to the restroom to collect myself and figure out what could’ve gone wrong.

While hyperventilating in the restroom, my paranoid instincts started to take over. Why weren’t the women noticing? Didn’t I put enough on? Did doubling the dosage ruin the effect? I had to find out. Due to my embarrassing display in class, I knew going back there in the short term was out of the question, so I decided to take a more low-key approach, applying the correct amounts and following Amy around the gym to see if I’d get a reaction. You know, like a puppy dog. Day after day, I lifted near her, stretched near her, walked in close proximity... and still nothing. I also applied it after shaving each day to see if my wife would suddenly be unable to resist me. After a week? The only reaction I got from my wife was, "Why are you wearing so much cologne lately? Can ya' lighten it up, please?" And Amy? Nope, I was just as invisible as always and Tito seemed safe after all. It was pheromone failure all the way around.

In summary, I don’t know what I was thinking and the product did not work for me, obviously. Maybe my body makeup wasn't conducive to the chemical effect that's supposed to take place. The pictures in all the ads show super models hanging all over us ordinary Joes after spraying on this magical potion and nothing of the sort happened for me. In fact, what's really ironic is that a few weeks after the pheromone fiasco I went up to Amy and simply introduced myself (without the spray). She turned out to be amazingly sweet and approachable, as well as smart, funny, and very self deprecating. And Tito is just a plain nice guy with a great body and an East Coast sensibility. In fact, Amy AND Tito will be joining us for dinner soon. No spray necessary.