There are 7 billion people on the planet, and not a single one of you can tell me where the other cufflink is?

Scientists claim that there are now 7 billion people on Earth. That’s more than the human population of all the other planets in the solar system – combined! Here’s another amazing fact: if all 7 billion people were citizens of one country, it would be the largest country in the world – hands down. Hard to fathom, but there are actually professionals who get paid big bucks to work these things out.

  Did you know, for example, that if each man, woman, and child all sat down at the same time, the people at the way back might be able to see the screen?  It’s true! But they could never actually test the theory in real-time conditions, because there will always be the clueless who come late – after the credits have rolled – and insist upon making everybody in the seventh row stand up to allow access to the  ninth seat from the aisle. Before you know it, people are popping up left and right, to re-familiarize themselves with the fire exits or buy a second bag of Twizzlers,® as if they are playing characters in an immense game of whack-a-mole.

 It never stops – like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops, when the summer shower is through. Or, more precisely, like the drip, drip, drip of a certain kind of psychological torture. This is human nature, and is the reason why the ending never makes any sense.

Seven billion people all competing for a finite number of virtual balloons to pop on computer screens present challenges that our grandparents never had to confront.  Not only that, but their student  loans were cheaper.

With seven billion armed with global positioning devices and night vision goggles now roaming around all over the four corners of the world, it’s next to impossible to hide.  Even if you lie on the floor with the lights off not breathing, they will still pound on your door demanding candy or else. “We know you’re in there!” they will yell. “Trick or treat,  you cheap bastard, pretending not to be home! We can see you!”

This is the Fronkenshtein that Malthus warned us about.  This is our brave, new world that has such spoiled little brats in it that they expect everything to just be handed to them.  Get used to it.  And while you’re at it, shove over. And sit down. And stop whispering.