Performance-enhancing drugs.

I watch a lot of SportsCenter on ESPN. A lot. And for the last two years or so (probably much longer, but I lose track of time) they have talked about PEDs a lot.

A lot.

I am not going to take a position on the subject, but today it made me giggle to think about other professions and what their performance-enhancing drugs would be. Naturally, my thoughts turned to writers and opiates or depressants. And I considered Tennyson, Poe, Hemingway.

So, seriously, could you imagine some panel coming along today and determining that none of the works of those three authors--just those three--was valid anymore because they ingested something that enhanced their ability to write? I'm sure high school students across the nation would rejoice, until more formal investigations were announced and then the list of literary juicers kept getting longer and eventually included the names of authors they actually liked reading.

What if all their stuff just POOF! disappeared? I don't know. Like I said, it made me giggle. I'll probably have a different thought on the matter next week. And I haven't even considered painters or sculptors yet.

Of course now I have to make it clear that I use no PEDs when I write.

Unless you count caffeine. But that's not a drug.

Oh, wait.... Damn.