Where Is A Shut Up Pill When You Really Need One?

I wish there was a shut-up pill. Is that so much to ask? There are pills for every darned affliction you can think of, not to mention the "illnesses" I'm convinced pharmaceutical companies have crafted to boost sales. But for those poor souls who dominate every conversation that they find even remotely interesting because it's the only way they can think all the fun thoughts that demands to be processed and/or played with? Nada.

Trust me, this is no sniggering matter. (You don't even want to know what the spell checker wanted to change that word to.) It may come as a surprise to many to know that there are those among you who simply CAN'T THINK without the external loop that connects brain to mouth to ear to brain. Like, fer instance, me.

In a conversation, I often have no idea what I think about a topic until I hear it coming out of my mouth. And then, apparently, I speak with such declarative phrasing, vigor and volume that I delude my listeners (poor souls: where is the pill for them?) into thinking I have held this opinion for decades and am immovable on the subject. Don't even think about it. Quickly... someone change the subject, or give her a massive chunk of fresh toffee or pemmican to glue her jaws shut. Or just shoot her.

See? On all accounts, a shut-up pill would be a gesture of humanitarian generosity on the scale of the nose-hair trimmer. Honestly. That big. First, for those of us who would take the little white cup with the single red pill eagerly and with no complaining, we would bless you. What a relief it would be to go home at the end of a day of meetings/social events/book club dinners/community group nights, and not lie there and think "WHY? Why can't you just STFU and listen to the people you love and honestly do want to hear what they think?" It's a common complaint, I'm sure.

And is desiring a prophylactic babble inhibitor so trivial as to warrant an immediate and disdainful dismissal by People With Bigger Problems To Solve? Listen, burrito-imbibing socialites who fear an intestinal gas attack in public or during an intimate situation have pills they can take to pre-empt an unfortunately timed triple-flutter blast. They know it's a possibility, and one they'd rather avoid, so... insert a couple of Gas-Xs, add a chaser of H2O, tilt head, and... no problem. But for us gotta-think-outside-the-head victims? It's a case of medical/pharmaceutical industry bias: gas over gas-bag discrimination, plain and simple.

Boy, if I were still in Canada, I'd be writing a letter to the editor and signing it "Shocked and Appalled in Mississauga."