I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague and by the wild beasts of the earth.

— Revelation 6:8

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year, isn’t it? Put aside all of the consumerism, screaming, greedy kids, nightmarish trips to the mall and the inevitable let down that results soon after the anticipation abates, and you are still left with a one HELL of a holiday. Christmas kicks ay-ass!

For me, the best part is the Christmas specials. TNT’s 24 hours of “A Christmas Story” blew my mind last year. I know TV is an evil contraption designed to keep us sedate. It’s an electronic drug — Huxley’s soma in a shiny box.

But when Linus does his little monologue or Scrooge realizes he still has a chance to change, I don’t care if it’s heroin, I want more. When the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes and Frosty has to leave so that winter will finally end … call my therapist because I may not be functional in the morning.

Can I have a moment to myself … please?

Sure, TV is a drug. Believe me, I’m counting on it. I’m too poor and timid to buy drugs.

Am I going to sit here and tell you I find drugs morally reprehensible? Not exactly. Most people are hypocrites when they take this stance. Especially the kind of walking crap factories that watch hours of prime time television every night, drink coffee and alcohol to excess or get off on that especially addictive religious feeling while complaining about other people’s favorite drugs of choice.

In spite of what The Man tells you, drugs are relative. If you do it and it makes you feel good, chances are it’s either a drug or something else that is easy to get addicted to such as food, love or sex.

Of course, it’s easy to point your finger at cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The Man already told us those things are drugs. But when it comes to that fine line where acceptable forms of getting off reside, that’s where the two-faced masses show their colors.

My old man is a good case in point. The dude has been smoking at least two packs of unfiltered Camels per day since he was 12 years old. He wakes up sometimes at 6 a.m. to get his early morning fix. Sometimes he smokes in the middle of the night and goes back to bed.

All day long, he drinks cup after cup of black, greasy spoon coffee. He looks like William S. Burroughs, but when the subject of pot-smokers comes up, he goes apoplectic.

He can’t stand “dopers.” To him, there is no such thing as casual drug use. That makes no sense to him as he takes a drag from a cancer stick and a gulp of caffeine.

It never occurs to him that the only real reason he smokes like a Dickensian textile factory is that he is hooked. Hooked like Janis Joplin. Hooked like Jim Morrison. Hooked like my aunt Stella the crack whore, but that’s another column.

I don’t blame people for being scared of drugs, though. Lord knows it attracts the skankier among us.

The thing that kept me off drugs in high school was I didn’t want to EVER have to share a joint, ride in a car or talk to that guy in the Doors T-shirt with the wispy, pubescent mustache, greasy hair, clodhopper boots and red eyes.

It was like Marty Feldman had kids in Council Bluffs that went to Abraham Lincoln High and drove Dusters.

You couldn’t have a decent conversation with those guys when they were straight in ceramics class. I can just imagine the kind of “deep thoughts” they would have had under the influence. “You know how when you walk into the Kwik Shop at three in the morning and get one of those green chile chimichangas, and you throw it in the microwave for, like, five minutes, and it’s hotter than hell on both ends and cold in the middle?”

Yeah, that sucks, dude. The universe is a wild place.

“I know, especially when you’re smoking a doob, yeah!”

Who wants to be like that?

“Dude, I was watching ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and listening to Pink Floyd, and I found out if you start ‘The Wall’ right when they get to island of misfit toys, their mouths move to the lyrics. It freaked me out!”

Yeah, thanks for the heads up, Cocaine Wayne. I’ll remember that if I ever just happen to be doing peyote at Christmas time. Why not try inhaling a can of oven cleaner while listening to Hendrix and watching “The Little Drummer Boy?”

Oh, for fun.

Well, enough of this gaiety. Good luck on finals, and try to enjoy Christmas with your families and drugs of choice, be they eggnog or Stygian black lotus petals.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily