Middle age is a bitch. This is where you learn that your teachers lied to you about there being four food groups. Now I know there are really five: meat, dairy, grain, fruit,………..and pharmaceuticals. This is a little ditty dedicated to all those who, like myself, find better living through chemicals.
Really don’t know when it started,
When my sanity first departed.
Some days I’d be so damned depressed
Couldn’t even get me dressed.
Hiding underneath the covers
Hoping maybe I would smother.
Hiding out inside my room
In the darkness, in the gloom.
I said, “I can’t go on this way.
It’s just too hard to face the day.”
So I found an old head shrinker
In my head I let him tinker.
He said, “there’s two things I can do:
To help us make a happy you.
The first is spend years on my couch.
About your childhood you can grouch.
In maybe ten or twenty years,
You’ll know the reasons for your fears.
But if you don’t want to wait that long,
I’ve got something good and strong.
My boy, the cure for all your ills
Is right here in these pretty pills.”
And you know, that old doc was right.
Now my future’s looking bright.
Getting older? Getting fatter?
Getting deader, it doesn’t matter.
All of my life’s little spills
Are no match for these pretty pills.
Some are blue and some are yellow.
They keep me loose, they keep me mellow.
Can’t get hard enough to screw?
They got a pill for that one, too.
I can go at life full throttle:
Got my sunshine in a bottle.
But look out, boy, if I don’t take ‘em.
The crystal and china, I just might break ‘em.
Without my pills I’m not so pleasant.
‘Cause my temper’s incandescent.
You won’t like me when I’m like that:
I yell and scream and kick the cat.
So God bless all my pharmaceuticals
That give me peace and healthy cuticles.
I do not think it undo vanity
Just to want a little sanity.
And while at times it makes me shiver
To think about my poor old liver.
A rotted liver’s a tiny price
To pay so folks will think you’re nice.
It matters not how much I sin
On my face I wear a grin.
I can go at life full throttle:
Got my sunshine in a bottle
–Stephen P. Smith
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