Because I Slept All Evening

Because I slept all evening and ate half of the pound of M&Ms that Erin brought me for my convalescence, I'm wide awake when I need to be asleep. I have got to go to work tomorrow.

Not because my job is so important but because I will go out of my freaking mind if I have to lie in bed for one more day. I was so far into my head, and it was very dark in there today. Even with drugs that take the edge off, I will lose it if I am home tomorrow.

A friend suggested I was faking to get a Vicodin prescription. Please. I'm not remotely interested in pharmaceuticals.

I self-medicate the old fashioned way - alcohol, shoe shopping, men. Not for this particular ailment, however.

I've never been interested in drugs, and I feel like my reality is often enough different from other people's that mind-altering substances sound like a little piece of hell.

So really, I turn to medication for pain and for sleeping on planes. I was a big fan of Tylenol PM till I learned about Ambien from a fellow passenger on an overnight flight to Paris.

We'd chatted as we settled into our seats. We took off and I was flipping through the movie listings. He asked if there was anything good playing, and I said, "I certainly hope so. I forgot my sleeping pill, so I'll be watching all of them."

To this he responded that he'd just gotten a new prescription for Ambien, and whipped out the bottle and offered me one.

The offer of sleep! So lovely!

I took it without thinking twice. Or once, apparently.

I took it before dinner, and by the time it kicked in, we were halfway through Sideways. I faded in and out for the rest of the movie, then slept till breakfast.

I wouldn't have thought about it again, except that my friend Kristin said Sideways had just come to Paris and had I seen it?

I said I had, but didn't remember most of it, because this guy on a plane gave me an Ambien and...

"Gave you an Ambien? Gave you an Ambien? You took drugs from a stranger?"

Um.

"You don't remember the movie? Well, do you remember the blow job you probably gave him?"

No, no, no. He was totally above board. I saw the label on the bottle, and he took one as well. And anyway, what can happen at 30,000 feet, packed into cattle class with a ton of uncomfortable, fidgety people?

I've since been told a lot of things.

Anyway.

I could've been allergic, it could've reacted with other medication...there are many reasons not to take random meds from strangers. It was stupid, and I'm lucky.

Holy cow. I got all the way from being stuck in bed to drugs from a stranger. This is making me crazy.

I absolutely have to go to work tomorrow.