Nursery Rhymes and Prozac

“[Insert your name here] stole the cookie from the cookie jar!”
“Who me?”
“Yeah you!”
“Couldn’t be!”
You’re all enjoying a slow, widespread smile right now aren’t you? Remembering singing the song either as a child or singing it to your children/younger siblings/cousins etc, right? If your answer is No, then I do pity your childhood and suggest you do some catching up and go sit in your local nursery for a bit - with your hands clearly visible, right next to your credentials. Such a seemingly innocent childhood song that does nothing but make the time pass in a more enjoyable fashion, and depending on its use, allows the group to learn each others names…lovely.
Little did we know that singing this song at high volumes actually distorts our nervous system and has great effects on how we are able to lead our lives. This has been studied by the EUC D.N.D labs and results have been published recently. But like many important things that have been published and sent out into the whole wide world, (has anybody read about the killer swine flu vaccine being forced on people from all cuts of the earth?) little notice has been taken and the song is still sung. And the inherent sense of guilt is that which will accompany us throughout our lives. People say ‘chocolate cake’ and instantly you dab at the corner of your mouth to see if you missed a crumb of double chocolate fudge forbidden what-not, right? The fact there’s man in the middle of Oxford Circus bellowing The End Is Nigh For All Sinners!! Also does nothing for our sense of guilt. But, as the Church would say, we are all born sinners and life is our shot at redemption…make of that what you will.
I am not really religiously bent in any direction, nor do I think I was born blaspheming my way out of my mother’s womb though considering my foul mouth…it’s debatable. But I do have a feeling that I carry more of a guilty conscience than most. Though I have never done anything bad in my life. Actually, I lie. When I was 12 a friend and I stole a sweet each from the local pick ‘n’ mix sweet shop. I felt so terribly guilty that the minute we got outside I popped it into my mouth, chewed faster than I have in my life, swallowed it and stood with my mouth slightly ajar to prove there was nothing in it should the security man happen upon us. Half way through the town centre. Because he clearly had nothing better to do, like guard a shop. So I have a slightly hysterical guilty conscience?! Who hasn’t? Clearly you, I know. But when surrounded with life constricting things such as, the first year of one’s driving license in Spain, guilty conscience turns into a habit. You see, you are allowed to drive at no more than 90 kmph – which is about 55 mph. You’re all gob smacked, right? So apart from the life endangering fact that I drive in Spain, for now, I also find myself having been born from a family who drive at break neck speed everywhere. Even to the corner shop. Driving slowly does not factor into our family vocab. pool, and so going at 90 kmph is preposterous to even consider. Thus, I find myself spending the entire first half of my driving life looking continuously in the rear view mirror. My eyes constantly scanning for anything with flashing blue, or white with writing – which consequently meant I slowed down to the ridiculous law abiding snail crawl the other day until I blinked my contact lens back into place and realized it was a removals van, and not a riot police van making a bee line for me. It also does not help that for now I am the Family Car Tramp and am borrowing whichever of the Dulin fleet happens to be available for my travels; more often than not this means my granny kindly makes hers available to me. It also means that I am running from the police and praying for inconspicuousness IN A RED CAR. It is like an interactive game of Where’s Wally. By the time I get to my destination my nerves are shot through, and let’s not even broach the subject of parking, because since I got told that limping doesn’t count as a disability, can’t park in the disabled spot and have to make do with the narrower spaces like everyone else uses…I park with my eyes half shut and hope it works.
But really, I think it is something about authority figures. No, I have not gotten side-tracked and am talking about uniforms and their possible degrees of sexiness, I am talking about the guilty conscience that robs me of sleep. And keeps me from flying to the States. The umpteen hundred hours on the plane are bad enough, every time I go I swear it’ll be my last, but I love my family too much and so find myself just swearing. But it is the arrival into immigrations (and their uniforms, see? Still on track) that makes me so nervous my curls fall out and my hair straightens. You inch forward, slowly, as if gradually getting closer to meeting your doom, slowly, sweat snaking its way down your back. By the time you’re one person away from the Immigrations Official you’re trying to remember why you’re visiting this country, whether you have stolen goods in your bag - what if someone dropped some drugs into your hold-all when you weren’t looking? Who are you visiting here? Why? Are you sure they’re your family? Business or pleasure? Oh my god! I enjoy my job , does that mean I answer both?! Can I? Am I allowed?! Then they scan your eyeball and take a piece of your index finger’s soul as it is infrareded – and then they switch the lamp on, “all the better to see you with, my dear” but really you know it’s an interrogation! The sweat now blurs your vision and by the time they ask when you’re leaving, you answer Right now!! Where’s the exit? Can I just back it up onto the same plane I got off??!! I love my American family, but my guilty conscience and I have issues with Immigration. And driving in Spain. And sweet shops. Actually, shops in general. Every time I walk out of a shop I hunch my shoulders and sink my neck into my collarbone hoping I’ll become less visible in case I mistakenly stole something and put it into my bag without me realizing – because I would be mortified if the alarms went off. Embarrassed shade of red does nothing for my hair colour. There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the effects of singing in nursery. And Sunday choir on TV.
As afore mentioned, the EUC D.N.D Labs, and that would be, European Union Citizen Dulin, Nur, Dulin Labs, have recently published research showing that the singing of accusatory songs at a young age serve only to imbed a deep seated sense of culpability at all levels, affecting motor functions (i.e. driving) to saliva glands (I nearly choked on the stolen sweet). Our lives have become so hectic and we lead them in such an automated manner, that we no longer give ourselves 5 minutes to stop and think: where do our prime problems stem from and how could we prevent them? 5 minutes over, what have we learnt? Do not sing to Tomorrow’s Generation? Or sing slowly and think about it, instead of just spewing out the usual suspects.