Apparently, I’m allergic to a specific type of antibiotic. I was given amoxicillin at the dentist and then went back to work as usual. About an hour later, I started shivering uncontrollably and had to go home. I ended up curled in the fetal position in bed for several hours, trembling and freezing.

My wife was understandably alarmed and mentioned it to my mother, who casually explained, “Oh yes, he’s allergic to amoxicillin—we found that out when he was a kid.”

Somehow, no one ever thought to tell me that little detail. Definitely something that would’ve been good to know before I took it.

Yep, same in the UK. We’ve abandoned our elderly and seemingly can’t wait for our kids to leave so that we enjoy maybe 10 years of watching TV and not working before we die.

In other, less ‘developed’ countries the family is a unit. The elderly help with the infants (which has been proven to be mutually beneficial), while the rest of the family works or helps maintain the household. There’s way less likelyhood of abandonment or lonliness in old age, which in my country is endemic.

Dogs can’t look up