"Kick back and relax"

Anyone else have a problem with that phrase? "It's time to kick back and relax..." What an odd thing to say. Kicking back surely means aggressive defiance. When you're in a corner, and the other guy is about to finish you off, you kick back. Right? You don't put your slippers on and lie back in your recliner, mug of Horlicks in hand, picking up the remote and switching to Granada Men and Motors.

Or do you?

Is this people's idea of a fight-back, these days? Is this really what has become of our civilisation, in these sedentary times? I blame it on video games. To a whole generation of spotty adolescents with BO and baseball caps welded to their heads (and the men they became*), kicking back is what you do when the bad guy has got you down and your life bar is almost empty. It involves getting slightly excited, just enough to knock that mug of Horlicks off the recliner edge.

Next person who says "kick back and relax", you know what I'm going to do? Kick them. In the back. And then relax.

With a nice mug of Horlicks.


* Me included. (Commodore 64)