My Drug Problem

Hi! It's 2:30 am in Central Texas. Want to hear a funny story???

This summer I went on a three-week trip to Paris, London, and Stratford. Worried about the misery of jet lag, I packed some medicine to help me sleep and to help me stay awake. I brought along Tylenol PM tablets to help me go to sleep at bed time in my destination cities. And I brought some of EK's narcolepsy pills to help me stay awake if needed the first couple of days in Europe. EK takes one of these every morning and often another half later in the afternoon. They keep him from being on the verge of napping all day long. The med he takes is used by night-shift workers to help them stay awake when their bodies don't want to. And it's used by the military to help soldiers and pilots work for crazy hours before sleeping. It's non-habit forming and highly effective. I thought taking a half a pill might be a good way to handle sleepiness. I put about six of the stay awake pills in a used travel-sized bottle of generic ibuprofen and jetted off to Europe.

Turns out I only used the Tylenol PM on the airplane and I only took a half of one of EK's pills on the first day in Paris. I carried home the rest of the meds. Unpacked all that stuff at some point---it's a blur of happy messy returning--and thought nothing more of the pills.

Flash forward to tonight!!. Er...last night I guess. Struggling with a head cold and a cough I took a decongestant and (drum roll please) TWO generic ibuprofen pills that I found in a bottle in the medicine cabinet.

There it was! Did you see what just happened?

Should I point out that it is now 2:35am??

At first I thought my "second wind" was a jolt from the pseudo-speed or whatever they put in decongestants. I used the energy to do some correspondence, grade a couple of papers, surf some favorite blogs, write some entries elsewhere in the blogosphere.

When it got to be midnight and EK had gone to bed without me, I thought "this is odd!"

When I went and laid down in the bed because, after all, it was 2 am and I should really be tired, I noticed that my brain was working at high activity and my muscles were jittery.

And that's when it hit me!

OH HOLY CRAP I TOOK TWO OF EK'S STAY AWAKE PILLS AT 8:00 PM I DID NOT TAKE IBUPROFEN I TOOK MEDICATION INTENDED TO ARTIFICIALLY GENERATE AN ADRENALINE RESPONSE AND KEEP ME AWAKE FOR WAY LONGER THAN THE BODY NATURALLY WANTS TO BE AWAKE I AM THE MOST ALERT PERSON IN THE WORLD I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT SLEEPY FEELS LIKE HOW IS HE SLEEPING HOW ARE THE KIDS SLEEPING WHY DO WE HAVE ALL THESE BEDS I CAN FEEL MY BRAIN BUZZING IF I WERE AT WORK I COULD WRITE THAT BOOK CHAPTER THATS BEEN ON MY TO DO LIST FOR A MONTH I COULD WRITE THE WHOLE BOOK I COULD JOG I SHOULD JOG EVERY DAY WHY DON'T I JOB EVERY DAY I COULD RUN A MARATHON IF I REALLY PUT MY MIND TO TRAINING I THINK I'LL GOOGLE MARATHONS I THINK I'LL WASH ALL THE CLOTHES IN THE HOUSE AND REFOLD ALL THE TOWELS AND MAYBE ALPHABETIZE THE KIDS BOOKS IF I TURN THE LIGHTS ON DO YOU THINK THEY'LL WAKE UP I CAN SEE THE DARK I THINK I HAVE DEVELOPED SUPER POWERS AWESOME I AM AWAKE WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR I REALLY WONDER IF I WILL SLEEP BEFORE THE WEEKEND IS OVER I HAVE TO TEACH ALL DAY TOMORROW WONDER HOW THAT WILL GO I HOPE I DON'T TALK TOO LOUD OH BRAVO TV I LOVE BRAVO TV I COULD BE DESIGNER I THINK I'LL SKETCH SOMETHING....

Luckily I have lots of old Project Runway's on the TiVo. And the internet. And the dog to keep me company.

Wish me luck!