There was a collective gasp among Coke Zero and Diet Pepsi drinkers this week after media reports highlighted a new study that found prodigious consumers of artificially sweetened drinks were 26 percent more likely to die prematurely than those who rarely drank sugar-free beverages. (NYT)

Early this morning, while I was sipping a cup of Moxene, a tanker truck pulled up to the curb and a man in a light gray jumpsuit hopped out of the cab to ring my front doorbell.
"May I help you?" I asked him politely when I opened the door.
"Here to fill up your chemical tanks" he said brusquely. "Where's the tanks at, in the basement?"
"What, the soft water thing?" I asked, puzzled.
"Nah" he said, sounding like Mel Blanc. "The other tanks, for your food and oxygen and stuff."
He was so brash, and I was so bewildered, that I let him walk right in and go straight down into the basement. The next thing I knew large rubber hoses were run through the kitchen window and down the basement steps; then the man in the light gray jumpsuit started the pump on his truck and all sorts of strange smelling stuff began coursing through the hoses.
"What in the world are you doing?" I shouted at him, above the noise of the pump.
He took out a small green pad, flipped a few pages, then began to recite:
"You need ten gallons of aspertone. Your mangle oil is low by two quarts. I'm bringing in a fresh sack of artificial efflux. Your hydroxoline is okay, but I'd better top off the sodiopox pool now before the snow flies. And I'm recharging your cyclamate free of charge this month, courtesy of your local bottling plant."
To steady myself I took two monochromatic pills, with a glass of pilsnerized water. The smells from the basement became gigantic, and a green fog swirled around my feet.
"Don't worry about that fog stuff" said the man in the light gray jumpsuit reassuringly. "Always happens when the meep fluid starts to warm up." 
"Why, why are you filling my home with all these strange and unnerving chemicals?" I asked despairingly.
"Just your standard synthetic delivery" he told me, looking surprised. "Without these compounds and decoctions your body can no longer survive the sulfurous heat and toxic atmosphere. Everybody and their dog knows that." 
Then it hit me -- I hadn't taken my zithium capsule that morning -- so my brains had leaked out through my ears. That's why none of this was making any sense to me.
"Give me a new molecular lobe, while you're at it" I told the man
 in the light gray jumpsuit. And then I was okay, as the chemicals aligned my pixels again. 
I finished my Moxene and skipped out the front door, ready to start a new day -- as synthetic as they come!