It's not true that I hate all of you. 99% of you are pleasant, hard-working people who do good in society. It's the other 1% of you that I abhor, and that 1% seems to be growing by the day. You know that 1% of the population are evil criminals, corrupt politicians and people who watch child pornography. It's them we have to hate. Apparently, 1% of them are also money launderers, because I have to go and prove that I am me and I live in my own house to the bank. The particular branch I frequent must be a halfway house for brain damaged people trying to reintegrate themselves into society. They phoned me on my home phone and sent a letter to my home address, and then demanded that I prove that I live there. I mean, if I didn't live there, how did I get the fucking letter? I tried to test the system by providing a false address to the nice lady behind the counter. She checked in her records and said "but this isn't your address, we have your address right here". I went to great lengths trying to make her understand that if she knew where I lived, why the fuck did I have to prove it to her? But she was obviously a newly released patient from the mental disability hospital and wouldn't capitulate. Our conversation went something like this:

Brain Damaged Lady: You need an afidavit from the police station to prove that you live where you do.
Me: How do the police know where I live?
Brain Damaged Lady: You will tell them.
Me: So they'll take my word for it?
Brain Damaged Lady: Yes.
Me: But what if I lie?
Brain Damaged Lady: That would be illegal.
Me: Illegal, like laundering money?
Brain Damaged Lady: Yes.
Me: So the government is relying on the general honesty of people to track down criminals?
Brain Damaged Lady: Exactly.
Me: Are you brain damaged?
Brain Damaged Lady: I'm afraid I'm only allowed to answer questions about registration.
Me: So that's a load of shit then.
Brain Damaged Lady: Do you want to speak to the manager?
Me: Is he also brain damaged?
Brain Damaged Lady: Of course, sir. We only employ brain damaged people at this particular branch. We get a tax rebate.

But it's those 1% of you that I hate most. You 1% who launder money so I have to give up watching my 1992 edition of Girls Gone Wild to go and interact with the mentally challenged detritus of society at the bank. You 1% who break into shit, so we all end up paying more for insurance than bond repayments. You 1% who take horror movies seriously and stab people in the face the next day, so we all have to put up with censorship. You 1% who take drugs and go insane and jump off the roof (hey, asshole, if you think you can fly, try it off the ground first) so that all of us responsible drug users are considered delusional and dangerous. You 1% who dry your dogs in microwaves, so that the rest of us are swamped with cautionary leaflets whenever we buy an appliance. You 1% who actually want to drive a Chrysler PT Cruiser, so that it got shat out of Satan's bottom in the first place. It's you fuckers who need to be exterminated. I hate you more than everyone else.

But, then again, the 99% people aren't much better. They include the 99% who loved The Sixth Sense and Kill Bill, the 99% who can't keep themselves from being amused by the fact that their phone has a ringtone, and the 99% who keep the one-joke Everybody Loves Raymond running for 27 seasons. The mother is domineering and sneaky, we get it. Move on. I would much rather watch a show called Everybody Loves to Hurt Raymond. That would be a good show. Every week, Ray Romano would be viciously tortured for 24 minutes and the episodes would be named accordingly. Everybody Loves to Hack Open Raymond's Chest would no doubt be a crowd-puller. And who can forget the classic Everybody Loves to Apply Paper Cuts to Raymond's Genitals? Not to mention Everybody Loves to Eat Raymond's Spleen, which would feature real Shamatari Indian cannibals. It would be like Videodrome with comedians — we could also include Barry Hilton. 99% of you keep buying Madonna albums. 99% still believe in god. And 99% of you ask me for change at the traffic light. I must be listed somewhere as an NGO charged with random and informal upliftment of people who will never make a meaningful contribution to society.

So between the 1% and the 99% it's very difficult for someone who isn't brain damaged to find peace. Sometimes I feel like the guy in Day of the Triffids who wakes up in hospital, and he's the only one who isn't blind or being eaten by plants, except I'm the only one who didn't get lobotomised. So, actually, when I said I liked 99% of you at the beginning of this column, I was lying. You're all a bunch of shits.