Thinking About You

When you, in your little two-up, two-down, have run out of milk and the silk sheets need a good washing from the flopping and frisking you and your lover did the night before...    
when you're scraping the papers together, post-tobacco, car, phones and 'net, to pay the rent -    
that's a first world problem.    
     
When the lights don't work on the street because of lightning, pop round to the neighbours but nobody's in, call your grown children on the mobile, check the world outside hasn't come to an end - it's a God send,    
that's a first world problem.    
     
When your dad's pumped with drugs by a lady in a white coat and he falls out of bed, no nurse comes to fetch him for ten and then he lays there in his piss and the stress on his face is like nothing he's ever felt, even in that war when he wasted his soul for his country, for the nurses, coppers, kids... the old men, well, they're dead now -      
that's a first world problem.    
     
When the lads parade the street, filled with angst, self-convinced, pig-ignorant convinced that the world is only wincing at their entire creation. They take from stations, board a bus - they don't pay, play with a knife, a little coke and a purse away from a night on the lash -      
blame it on another first world problem.    
     
Not enough coppers on your streets, not enough education to teach a boy a little respect in this big, free economy, free society and a girl, her dress up round her thigh? Well, she won't cry out, when he's looking for a little talent because she'll pout for a wage and strut, the idea of a fuck. We've been there, country's youth, hoping something's going to warm us from the dirty, city, night air. That's a first world problem.    
     
Kids, when your eye-liner isn't sharpened, when the sky outside has darkened, oh, and damn, your printers out of ink? - Don't you think? ...You know the drill. You know the thrill of frustration and anxiety in our propriety, our high expectation society. We all get what we need but the wants feed the habit and the habit feeds the need for social integration. Where's the cooperation? Endless comparisons of the shit that we own and when that nest is flown we think paying our gas, our bills with paper and copper is a problem. It's a first world problem.    
     
Count your pension, count and groan and moan because the woman four doors down she's got more than you and she didn't even come from round here. That's the fear speaking. She has three kids and the skids from where her man left are still in the drive and they thrive, just about, on their three pieces of silver. I bet in Congo they'd be grateful of that. You shake your head, feel the dread? Click on the telly, fill your belly on pizza and fries, these are the highs of your life, listen to the news and the spews of violence and hatred and negativity installing, biting and crawling, it's way into your brain, do you feel the shame? Do you feel the shame? It's a first world problem.