"Don't tell them to grow up and out of it" advised D Bowie in his seminal, 1971 persona-hopping and defining classic hit Ch-ch-ch-changes. You'd be right in assuming he was probably addressing the parents, guardians, etc of the kids who, emboldened by the example before them, were wasting no time in getting it together and assuming colourful personae of their own, and in doing so undoubtedly getting on the nerves of those parents, guardians etc, and thus renewing and refreshing that standby cultural phenomenon the generation gap. And more power to their collective elbow.
No-one likes to be told to grow up, any more than one likes to hear that this or that stalwart figure "doesn't suffer fools gladly", primarily because the non-sufferer of fools every bit as much as the admonisher of the apparently gauche is likely to be even more insufferable than either of the above ostensibly hapless recipients of unwanted advice. I don't think I've ever met anyone who apparently didn't suffer fools gladly who wasn't something of a cunt, as Randall P McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest memorably characterised the frightful Nurse Ratched, and either disastrously pompous or suffocatingly smug. Usually both. And often all three. The type who, in short, has no business admonishing anyone. On any matter whatsoever. Ever. In fact, when one reads or hears of someone who doesn't suffer fools gladly, it should, and I'd guess already does, act as a kind of shorthand or code for identifying the type of boorish, entitled narcissist who needs to have a word with him/herself, or give his/her head a wobble, or whatever the current ghastly colloquialism is for needing to indulge in a spot of honest self-reflection.
Honestly though, they need to grow up, those who see drug references in every other utterance or cultural artefact. Grow up and out of it. And count yourself among their number if you automatically assumed that the title of this piece referred to drug use. Reference to drugs and drug use in 93.75% of all lyrics written between 1925 and 2019, and in innumerable seemingly innocent family films in the same period (hands up Disney!) might be demonstrably provable to have been the case, but that doesn't mean you need to endlessly bang on about it. Popping and dropping in this case refer not to pills and blotting paper infused with mind altering chemicals but to the nefarious practice, too prevalent in these times, of popping by or in and dropping in or by without prior arrangement. There can be no excuse for popping, or dropping, in or by. If you're the type of individual who thinks it perfectly fine to drop in or pop by without first checking with me, then it follows that you're also the type of individual for whom the very phrases "popping in/by" and "dropping in/by" aren't themselves beyond the pale. And if those phrases themselves aren't for you beyond the pale, then we need to talk. Seriously. Grow up. And Out Of It.
All of which is to say that it's very easy to let things slide. Easier still to bite back. So let's hear it for the integrity of personal space. For the sanctity of boundaries. If you choose to invade someone's personal space, whether that someone is ostensibly a friend or merely an acquaintance, without first checking that that invasion is welcome, on the assumption that your presence cannot be other than a benefit and a boon, then we need to have a word. It may be that your company truly is the wondrous and bounteous benefit you automatically assume it to be, but if you'll allow me, I'll be the judge of that. The final arbitration as to the desirability of your presence at a specific time (now) and place (my place) shall remain mine, and mine alone. Get Real! as David Lynch advised those who, to his immense distress, imagined that in viewing one of his films on their phones had actually "seen" that film. Get Real indeed!
All of which is to say that no-one's actually dropped by, or popped in, for some time. But woe betide them if they try it without calling me first! And when, in any case, did it become a thing to drop in or pop by? And furthermore, when did "when did it become a thing?" become a thing? It's not as though we live in homogenous, non-atomized communities any more. People now don't, probably never did (contrary to persistent mythologising of the past), leave their doors unlocked so that neighbours and/or friends could pop in or drop by at will. You'd be asking for trouble if you did. And yet, the would-be poppers and droppers act, or purport to act, as if the ensuing several heavily mythologised decades hadn't actually occurred.
No, I'd prefer it if you followed the example of the disembodied ghost who, in the Byrds' classic hit "I Come And Stand By Every Door" (originally adapted from the poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and later also re-adapted among many others by The Fall as a standout track on their post-1998 implosion LP "Levitate"), had the decency to wait outside rather than just barge in uninvited. You may not be dead, and need both rice and fruit, and bread - but have the common courtesy to await an invite. Or at least phone ahead. An email would be good. A txt, even. And grow up. And get out of it.
I eventually had to post a large sign on my door as discouragement for ringing the bell unannounced.
It requests said ringer bring a good bottle of mead, leave it quietly on the doorstep and then depart without making a fuss to even be considered for admission six months down the road.
People who pop by unannounced only do so because they know that messaging ahead would give you the opportunity to say No. Their arrival is as much of an imposition as they already know it to be. In acquiring the thickened epidermis needed for dropping in, they are saying 'I no longer care whether you want to see me or not'. Those who find a shooing motion of a hand at the window a little too abrupt, a matter of descending to the caller's level, can with honour hide behind a jardiniere until they have gone.