J.E. Matzer's Wafer Thin Mint

ONE PILL MAKES YOU LARGER

and one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice...when she's ten feet TALL

White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane

I don't like taking medicine. I never have.

In fact the only medicine I have only ever enjoyed taking was St. Joseph Children's Aspirin. you remember SJC Aspirin, don't you. The little orange pills that tasted like orange candy? Talk about yummy! I'm not sure how they rated on the medicinal scale, but Brother, on the yummy scale, they were a solid ten in my book.

In hindsight probably not the smartest way to go with a children's medicine, I mean that stuff was like crack to me, not that I know what crack is like, I'm just saying that my mom never had to hold me down to give me some SJC Aspirin and if the kid on the schoolyard wanted to sell me some for the Twinkie out of lunchbox? Well, then, I was down with that too.

In lieu of an actual diagnosis, I'm taking several medications right now.

All of my medications, according to the labels, are to be taken orally.

WHEW!

Also, all of my medications are clearly labeled DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL. I'm not a drinker anyway, but I couldn't even imagine drinking with any of these. Most of these medicines make me feel like Jack Nicholson at the end of the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. My girlfriend can't seem to understand why I get a little squirrely when she comes towards me to fluff my pillow.

The first pill I take every day is a big white pill. A big white pill. Big as in it would choke a hamster. I call this my big white hamster choker. Thus my relief that my medication is all to be taken orally.

Anyway, this big mother is the one that is supposed to take the pain away. It's easy to find, easy to get out of the bottle, and if I take enough, I see Gummi Bears. Sometimes that's not a bad thing. However, if you're operating a tractor, it can present some unique problems. That's where the whole 'don't operate heavy machinery' thing comes from, in case you wondering. Believe me, you don't want to be behind the wheel of a 4 ton combine and go chasing Gummi Bears. It's a bad thing. It really is.

Then there's the little tiny pill I take three times a day. It's really, really small and I drop it every time I try to pull it from the bottle. I usually swallow a good amount of carpet fuzz with those tiny little bastards. Right now I'm in the process of trying to create some sort of MacGyver-PEZ dispenser out of items from around the house. I'm also going to make a little paper mache head of my doctor. I figure that at least I will be getting something out of him.

This little white pill makes me feel fuzzy. I feel like I'm five and I've put my footie pajamas on inside out. It's a weird feeling...feeling fuzzy, that is. I don't know how bears do it. Shit. While we're at it. How do hedgehogs do it? Seriously! How do hedgehogs do it? You know. It. Shagging.

See. This is what I'm talking about. I never thought about this stuff before I was on all this medication and if I was I don't remember. And that's another thing! My memory is shot all to Hell.

See. This is what I'm talking about. I never thought about this stuff before I was on all this medication and if I was I don't remember. And that's another thing. My memory is shot all to Hell.

SHIT!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about!

I mean, I used to be a walking encyclopedia of useless information. And I used to have a great memory. Damn. Now I'm lucky if I have pants on when I walk out of the house. I find myself stuttering when I talk and stumbling to find words and just stopping as the whole rest of the world goes spinning around me as I struggle to find what I wanted to say and I hate that. I really, really hate.

Ask anybody who knows me. I'm a control freak. I am. I'm not ashamed of that. I owe much of my non-existent success to my control freakiness. Now I'm even losing that. I'm losing feeling in my arms and hands. Unless they're jerking all over the place, that is. My brain freezes up on me and not in a cold SLURPEE-BRAIN-freeze way but in an "alien-just-snatched-my-brain-sorta-way." For a normal person, this is a miserable existence. For a control freak, this is a nightmare.

For an Eskimo, it's even worse. I think it was close to 104 yesterday.

My day starts with medicine and ends with medicine. I'm told that my body will eventually adjust and the pain will subside and that most of the symptoms will go away.

I'm fuzzy now as I write this and I'm sure there are typo's.

I'm tingling too. My hands don't feel like they're mine. Maybe they're not. I'm not really sure I care at this point. Maybe I will come back at some point and fix them. The typo's that is and not my hands. The doctors should fix my hands. The doctors should do a lot of things. But that's the stuff that dreams are made of Horatio.

And maybe I won't fix my typo's. Maybe I will just ride my purple unicorn over the rainbow to my mushroom castle and live to fight another day.

So if you will excuse me...I think I will do what the door mouse said and go feed my head.

and that's "jody" with a "y"