If you have a problem, don't get too concerned.  Just go to the drug store and buy a pill.  These days, you can take a pill for almost anything.

Afraid you might get pregnant?  Take a pill.  Worried about going bald?  Take a pill.  Feel like killing your boss?  Take a pill.

Pills are now considered one of the three major food groups.  The other two, of course, are chocolate and ice cream.

Without pills, we'd be walking around in constant anguish.  "Oh, my head.  Oh, my back.  Oh, my erectile dysfunction."

If you think people curse a lot now, just try taking away their pills.  Even religious leaders would begin using four-letter words.

We'd finally understand why our cave-dwelling ancestors could communicate through only grunts and groans.  It took thousands of years for them to learn those three important words: "Me want pill."

Lucky for us, modern doctors are fond of pills.  Go to a doctor with a problem and she'll probably ask, "Have you taken any pills?"  Even before she's had a chance to examine your rash.  Talk about a rash diagnosis.

The doctor gives you a prescription, a piece of paper that doctors doodle on.  You take the paper to a pharmacist, who spent several years in college just learning how to read doodle.

"What does it say?" you ask.

"You need lots of pills," he says.  "Small ones, big ones, white ones, yellow ones, round ones, square ones.  It must be quite a rash."

He smiles.  You know exactly what he's thinking: "Now I can buy new shoes for my kids."

You return home with six bottles of pills.  One kind, you need to take three times a day, right after meals.  Another kind, you need to take six times a day, on an empty stomach.  A third kind, you need to take once a day, while completely naked.

Just figuring out the pill rotation gives you a migraine.  Which means you need a seventh pill.

And you have no idea what side effects you'll experience.  That's because the pill makers, afraid of lawsuits, warn you against every possible reaction: "Taking this medication could result in sleeplessness, drowsiness, laziness, incontinence, impotence, intelligence, loss of appetite, loss of memory, loss of property.  If you're black, it could  turn you white.  If you're white, it could turn you whiter.  If you're Saddam Hussein, it could turn you sane."

Even if you're in good health, you may need lots of pills.  That's because vitamins and minerals come in pills.  So do nutritional supplements.  Some bodybuilders spend half their days swallowing pills.  And the other half looking in the mirror.

One of the most popular supplements these days is creatine, which can turn almost anyone into Arnold Schwarzenegger.  It's much cheaper than taking acting lessons.  Just ask Arnold.

But there's a major problem with creatine and some other supplements:  Their long-term effects have not been studied.  This worries me.  I'm afraid I'd wake up in a few years and find that I've grown a pair of breasts.  The kind that would make Dolly Parton envious.

Of course, the supplement makers would be thrilled.  They'd find a whole new market in teenage girls.

And maybe they'd ask me to appear in their advertisements.  "If creatine did this for him," they'd say, "imagine what it would do for you."

They'd have to pay me a lot of money.  I won't embarrass myself for nothing.

Not without taking a pill.

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