The heat brings all the weirdos out, I commented sourly to myself as I made my way down through the uncharacteristically sunny shopping street. “Just look at them,” I marvelled to myself, “Where do they all come from? Where do they hide for the rest of the year?”
I stopped and looked around at the colourful throng of people. Would you look at that bunch of freaks and misfits. I couldn’t get over it. There were hippies and crusties and long-hairs of every description. There was every kind of haircut on display from dreadlocks to Mohicans. And all types of colours – purple, pink, orange, green. There were skin-heads and there were punks, there were Goths and there were New Romantics. You name it. The weirdest assortment of clothes. Anything just so long as they didn’t run the risk of looking in any way normal. God forbid. We couldn’t have that now could we?
I bet none of these hippies ever did an honest day’s work in their lives, I thought to myself in disgust, and yet here they were spilling out all over the streets leaving no room for ordinary folk to go about their business. The lousy heedless freaks. What really got me was their casual, easy manner. This puzzled me on some deep level. They gave the impression of being so happy-go-lucky, so carefree, so untroubled. Not a bother on them. They actually looked as if they were having a good time, for God’s sake. What’s more, they looked as if they believed that they had every right to be having a good time.
Then I realized. It came to me in a flash. Of course they looked as if they were having such a good time. Of course they looked happy. They were probably all on drugs. They were probably all stoned out of their brains, as high as you please. Loaded. Spaced out. Out of their trees. On the whacky baccy. On the gear. On the stuff. On the Bob Hope. Snorting the old Lou Reed. Having the crack. They were all just a bunch of damn dope heads when it came down to it. Pill popping social deviants. Bunch of space cadets. Reefer addicts. Drug abusers one and all…
Why do we have to put up with this, I thought, getting angry now instead of merely contemptuous. If I had my way I’d have them all put into correctional facilities. Given haircuts. Taken off social welfare. Forced to get do community service. Deported to whatever countries they originally came from. Made to wear proper clothes. That would put some manners on them.
What the hell is the matter with the world these days, I wondered. How can they be let away with this? What are things coming to? Am I the only one left who is normal?
