Don't Try This At Home

Ugh, yesterday I really felt like crap, all worn out and headachy. I suppose it was my own fault though.

No, I didn't go out and get drunk the night before. I've pretty much quit drinking because alcohol has too many calories. Also, it tends to make me even louder and more obnoxious than usual and eventually end up vomiting on my shoes. And hey, now that I'm ponying up $200+ bucks for a pair of heels, I don't want barf on them!

So no, no alcohol was involved. But, just because I no longer like getting liquored up doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good altered state of consciousness every now and again. Who doesn't? So I decided to try a little experiment.

I've often wondered what would happen if you combine massive amounts of caffeine with a sleeping pill. Would it be like dreaming while you were awake? Would the two just cancel each other out and do nothing? Would you get pleasantly fucked up? Or end up hurling on your shoes? Since there was nothing good on TV that night, I decided to find out. (Though I did change into an old pair of sneakers first, just as a precautionary measure.)

First I drank an energy drink that listed 60mgs. of caffeine on it's label. Then I had a double shot of espresso. Just in case that wasn't enough, I munched on a few of those Starbucks chocolate covered espresso beans. Delicious!

Feeling the heart pounding, teeth clinching rush come on, I then went to the medicine cabinet for phase two of the experiment. I had planned on taking an Ambien, but was annoyed to discover that the bottle was empty. Geez! Why do I do things like that? Why would I take my last pill and then put the bottle back in the cabinet instead of throwing it away like any normal person would?

I blame the filthy lyrics of heavy metal rock music and Tipper Gore for failing to protect me from them. They have obviously rotted my brain.

Since there was no Ambien, I took three, 3 mg. Melatonins instead. Then I laid down on the bed to see what, if anything, would happen.

I had hoped for a soft and dreamy yet lucid state, that would help me achieve a very profound level of meditation, allowing for greater insight and inner wisdom.

Instead, I quickly fell into a coma-like sleep so deep it was like being buried underground. I woke up three hours later with a pounding headache, aching muscles, and a lake of drool pooled all around the side of my face and inside my ear. Gross! I never did get back to sleep after that but while lying there I did experience a sort of trippy hallucination-type event.

Wow, was it ever weird. and the funny thing is, you were there, and you, and also YOU! I'll tell you what I remember of it.

It started at the Berlin Wall. All This Trouble and Krissyface and I were hanging out there, singing a few salty sea shanty's and smearing green paint all over each other when XL came over to us.

"Hi guys," he said. "Did you know blueberries are good for your brain? I just ate three buckets full and now my smarticals are tingling, and I can play the spoons and smell bacon a hundred miles away."

At that point we all smelled the bacon, warm and wonderful so we began walking towards it. Then I found myself inside Paula Deen's cozy house, sitting at the kitchen table next to Joyless Prole who was wearing a Pope hat and crying. I wondered why he was so sad, since he looked quite fetching. Plus, Paula was frying us up some kind of buttery dish and the aroma was making my mouth water. But when she put a plate down in front of me it turned out to be a menacing looking raw pig's heart with a hypodermic needle shoved through it.

"Eat up your pie, Pru," Paula Deen hissed, through angry gritted teeth. "Eat it or I'll shove it down your goddammit throat!" Then she burned me with her cigarette and I started crying too.

Next, I met a strange lady who turned out to be Girl Interrupted. She made me nervous. She took me in and gave me breakfast.

And I said, "Oh, do you come from the land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?"

"No," she said. "I come from London where the women can grow a beard on command and the men belch a lot."

"I don't believe you," I said. "Prove it!" So she grew a beard right then and it was very handsome.

Then we were walking down a long road when a pickup truck pulled up next to us. There were 40 giant slobbering Rottweilers in the back, along with a demented albino playing an evil banjo tune and grinning dementedly at us. Suddenly a man stuck his head out of the cab and whistled at us, and even though he had a hook for a hand and another for an eye, I recognized him as Dr. Zibbs.

"Get in," he ordered, handing us both a jar of mustard with his hook. We did as we were told and we all drove off just as the banjo player switched to a KISS song. I think it was "Lick It Up."

After a while I found myself in a really nice red sports car being driven by Wendy B and Bill Stankus. There were two steering wheels, and as Bill turned one way, Wendy turned the other and they argued about this back and forth in a strange Click language.

This went on for a while until we all got out of the car and took turns shooting a cheese sandwich off of Warped Mind of Ron's head with an AK-47 while Ron sang a little song that went like this:

Gosh, these bullets are a blizzard.
Don't hit me in the gizzard!
Oh I'd rather lick a lizard
than have to watch The Wizard of Oz.

Then 800 midgets showed up and we all danced a hoe down till the sky began to rumble and purr.


Freaky, huh? The purring turned out to be my cat Jackie Waffles who had snuggled down on the drooly spot by my ear. He likes wet things. Where the rest of that bizarre head trip came from, who can say?

All in all, it was an interesting experience. Though because of the wicked hangover it caused, I won't be doing it again. Not anytime soon anyway. Well, not real soon. Maybe next week.

Shit, I'll probably do it again tonight.