“There’s a whole lotta crankiness going on,” as Jerry Lee Lewis once almost sang. Everywhere you look the crabbiness of Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts has taken root in the body politic. It’s not just the Republicans versus the Democrats for breakfast any more. Americans are atomizing into tribal warfare like Afghan tribes. Factions of the Republicans hate each other with a hatred both true and pure, as shown by the booing of Ron Paul as the winner of the straw poll at the CPAC convention. The Democrats are equally at odds with themselves over everything. As Rodney King once asked in a different context, “Can’t we all just get along?” At this point, the answer seems to be a resounding, “Nope.”

Fortunately, Time magazine’s cover just sported a picture of Washington, D.C., frozen in a chunk of ice as a place where nothing gets done anymore due to partisan poopyheadedness. Let us consider for a moment a few of Robert Frost’s lines on this subject from his ditty, Fire and Ice. Ol’ Bob, while writing about the end of the world, said: “But if it had to perish twice/ I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffi ce.” Bob’s poem brings up the global-warming issue, which itself opens up even more cracks in the thin ice of civility that used to bind us together as a nation.

If you paid much attention to the news, you might begin to feel less than optimistic about the future of the country. However I take comfort in the proven theory that by the time a trend becomes a cover story on Time magazine, the trend is almost over. Now that the winter of Washington’s discontent in an ice cube story has run in Time magazine, can a Spring of reconciliation be far behind?

What we need now is something to ameliorate the angst that affl icts America. Fortunately we’ll soon have just the ticket to ride out of our slough of despondency. Yep, Big Pharmaceutical is about to release another super drug to fi ll up the psychic pot holes on the road to happiness in the early 21st century. The Acme Drug Cartel is about to release the latest cure for what ails us: Vicodin for the Soul. Vicodin for the Soul works by cauterizing the Spite Center in the Medulla Oblongata of the soul. It’s a theological/political lobotomy for the masses. Prepare to be mellowed out and love your enemies. You will cooperate with people you previously could not stand. Nancy Pelosi will link arms and sing Kumbaya with Glen Beck. Tea Baggers and Acorners will intermarry and reproduce.

Vicodin for the Soul is a new wonder drug that is going to make us all love each other. Faster than a speeding Thorazine tablet. More powerful than a case of Abilify. Able to paper over towering political differences in a single dosage. Look up in the sky! It’s a feathered dinosaur! It’s Balloon boy! It’s Vicodin for the Soul! Yes, it’s Vicodin for the Soul, a strange visitor from a Chinese Petri dish that came to your local pharmacy with powers and abilities far beyond those of mere commercial mode altering drugs. Vicodin for the Soul can change the course of political philosophies, bend frozen opinions with only 500 milligrams three times a day; and when, disguised as Diet Soda, a mild mannered drink in a great metropolitan pharmaceutical store chain, fi ghts the never ending battle for political placidity, the appearance of justice and the American way.

Vicodin for the Soul transmogrifi es the human Spite Center into the gentleness of a barrel of fl uffy kittens on a Spring morn. Political crankiness will be eliminated by better living through chemistry. Your soul will be at peace. Flo the grinning brain dead sales lady for the car insurance company is on Vicodin for the Soul. With regular daily usage of Vicodin for the Soul, political arch enemies can become as happy together as Flo and the guy who wants to buy car insurance. Don’t you want to be as happy as Flo? Don’t you want to love your enemies?

With industrial strength Vicodin for the Soul replacing fl uoride in America’s water systems, the entire country will be just as blissfully zoned out as the couples who sit around all day in bath tubs at the beach in the Cialis commercials. Sink yourself into happiness. Empty your mind and fl ood your brain with love. Buy Vicodin for the Soul, a couple of hot tubs and never think again. You’ll be glad you did.