Things that really .. really piss me off: part X

To mark the tenth in this series of well-honed rants, I thought a special tirade was in order.

The pill-popping generation

What the hell is it with people, eh?

They have a head ache, so a blind panic ensues while they rummage around in bags and bedside draws looking for a packet of pain killers.

They have a stomach upset, so they pounce on the telephone and badger their doctors' receptionist into giving them an early appointment.

They get a cold or influenza and suddenly, they are the last of our species. One to be feted and waited upon in their stricken state. Meanwhile, a multitude of salves, tablets and sweet-smelling solutions are imbibed above & beyond the recommended daily allowance, usually complicating what is essentially a mild illness with severe diarrhea.

Of course, by this time they're convinced they're dyeing from some tropical disease like West Nile virus or Haemorrhagic fever. Death is surely only hours away?

If only, then the surplus population of these whinging wankers of the great hypochondrium might be trimmed to a more manageable number .. like none.

People don't want to sleep. Riddled with the fear of a child at christmas, scared to miss good ol' Santy Claus, they want see everything and not miss a single hour.

So they take a tablet to induce some kind of waking delirium. But one tablet doesn't bring about the desired effect fast enough. So they take one more .. then another, and another.

Soon, they are swept up into a leg-twitching state of hyperactivity that usually leaves them buzzing around like a blue-arsed fly in a blaze of unintelligible incoherence.

People want to get a high. Wanting to be the centre of attention and be the epicenter of mirth and congeniality. So they take a pill .. given to them by a friend of a friend who knows someone who's just come back from holiday in one of those strange countries you've never heard of that borders nations like Libya or Kazakhstan.

Now, rather than be the source of merriment, they're transformed into a blathering, sweating, beady-eyed blur of activity. Talking so fast and with such clear and unequivocal meaninglessness that you think that you're in their head and that they imagined you.

Fear not. This burst of energy won't last. Come two in the morning and they're reduced to a bleary-eye, arched-backed sack of molasses, sodden in their own drug-induced pool of cold sweat .. a bit like Peter Doherty.

People want a pill for every ill.

People are getting fatter. Why? Because they eat too much.

No great mystery there, then.

The very thought of having their stomach stapled makes them wince. The very idea of eating less is to them not even a consideration.

So what is a lard arse supposed to do about it? Well, there's only one logical solution; they want a pill.

Never thinking that actually getting off their more than ample arses and getting out & about might not only improve their health, but actually get some much-needed fresh air into their largely prosaic lives.

A bitter pill to swallow indeed...