GAAHHH! I'M STILL ALIVE?!

I caught a cold last week, and learned that there's something you should never do when you're sick. Or when you're well, either. It involves cough syrup.

See, I had a bad cough, and at first I was taking some Tylenol capsules for it. The capsules were for the cold, as well as the cough. In my opinion, they effectively took care of neither. One morning, in the midst of a coughing fit, I decide to rummage in the medicine cabinet for some cough syrup. I locate a bottle of Robotussin. The label directs me to take two teaspoons.

Here's what I should have done: Gone downstairs to the kitchen, gotten a teaspoon, taken two teaspoons of cough syrup.

Here's what I did instead: Decided to swig directly from the bottle.

Normally, I'm not a slob. See, I bought this bottle of cough syrup a year ago, and never opened it. No one in the house used it, either, because for some reason, they view it as Phil's Medicine. So no one touches it. Anyway, I take a quick swig, but then I look at the bottle and see that very little cough syrup has been used. In fact, I reckoned barely one teaspoon had been siphoned out in that first turn. So I decide that, next swig, I'll try to drink down a little more. Like that time with the Yaegermeister. But that's another story...

So I tilt my noggin back for the second swig, and I chug a little longer this time. In fact, I do a quick standing two-count, "One... Two." That should do it, right. Well, I look at the bottle, and it turns it's practically empty now! I drank almost a whole bottle of cough syrup!

Right around then things started to get a bit hazy. I barely managed to drag myself off to bed before I lost consciousness. Next thing I knew, it was evening. On the plus side, I wasn't coughing anymore. I still can't cough. I can't even force myself to cough, since my throat feels smooth as butter. I've also become a raging alcoholic.

Let that be a lesson to you. If you need a teaspoon, go get one. Don't be lazy!


GAAHHH! I'M STILL ALIVE?! II

Good thing I got over my cold this past week, because I needed all my strength to battle raging insomnia.

Yeah, it's funny. I've barely worked the past month, school is still out because my teacher is in the hospital with serious kidney problems, yet I've never been so tired. So I decided to go to my local drug store and buy some sleeping pills.

I take two sleeping pills before trying to go to sleep. Obviously, they did no good, because I still tossed and turned for an hour. So I decided to take two more. Then two more. Don't worry, the box said that exceeding eight within a 24-hour period was dangerous, so I stopped at six. Let me tell you, those puppies were slow to kick in, but kick in they did... at about 9 a.m. the next day.

So I spent that day basically popping in and out of consciousness. Waking up wasn't exactly a treat, because my mouth was all dry and my lips were bleeding. I tried drinking plenty of water, which was tough since I kept falling down when I tried to stand. However, the groggy periods were matched by periods of seemingly boundless energy (Though my eyelids felt glued shut.) I did a lot of jumping around and trying to kick things. Oh yeah, my heart beat really fast for a while, too. That was kind of scary.

Fortunately, the pills have worn off and I am back to normal. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't do drugs. Not even with a teaspoon. And if Franco wants to rent an apartment with me and write a book, so be it. I already finished the obligatory drug chapter.