Don't take drugs!

Growing up, my dad made sure I was terrified of drugs like cocaine and LSD.

Sometime in the 70s we were watching a detective show (maybe it was Kojak?) and this woman got a terrible nosebleed and died. And my dad said that the problem was that she'd been snorting cocaine, and cocaine erodes your nasal bone and so if you do it your nose can collapse. And you can die.

Do you know how many years I walked around worried that there might be cocaine in the air at a party and I'd accidentally breathe some in and then my nose would collapse? And then I'd die?

My dad also said if you took LSD you could have flashbacks out of nowhere years later. He personally knew some people who did.

I didn't even know what this meant but it sounded terrible.

And then in college a friend told me that she'd tried acid and her refrigerator had sung to her. I was all, my head is already a weird place. The last thing I'd ever need was my fridge singing to me.

Also, I when I want something to be done with, I want it done. I am not someone who just sits back and relaxes. This is my problem with altered states, even just drinking too much. You want it to be over, and it's not, and you just have to waaaaaiiit it out.

Is it over? No. Is it over now? No. How about now? No.

Wretched.

So I've been thinking about medication and why I was fretting about upping my thyroid medication when the fact is that I took a sleeping pill from a complete stranger on an airplane.

Actually, we weren't absolute strangers, as we'd been sitting next to each other for at least a good 25 minutes before he proffered it. And it was prompted by my complaint that I'd forgotten mine and as such, would be up all night and hoped that the movie selection was good. And he took one as well!

I wouldn't have thought about it again except that my friend Kristin made such a big deal about it when I mentioned it in passing.

"Some man on a plane gave you an Ambien? You took drugs from a stranger?"

I was raised better, really. I've not repeated the mistake.

(Also, it's good I'm married. I used to have lots of odd things happen when I traveled. Plus now I could blame a terrible fart on Nick or one of the kids.)

So I'm not really sure what the distinction is for me. Maybe it's that I'm not interested in party drugs, but I am a big fan of sleep? And also I dislike pain.

I wasn't, however, a fan of the Oxycodone that they gave me after my C-section, so after the first couple days, when I was no longer in horrendous pain, I stopped taking it. I hated feeling that out of it. I couldn't imagine taking it recreationally.

On a side bar, I always thought I had a low pain threshhold, but maybe I don't. Because after that C-section the nurses forgot to connect the pain medication to my IV. So I kept telling them that it hurt and they kept telling me to push the button.

It wasn't until I was at the point where I was like, "I HAVE PUSHED THE BUTTON A MILLION TIMES AND IT REALLY FUCKING HURTS LIKE MORE THAN 10!" that they were all, oh. This should be plugged in to that. Yes, you probably are in 10 pain. Sorry!

Sometime in that period I was informed that my medication had great per-pill street value, and if I wanted to sell them, I had at least one friend of a friend who'd be interested.

I added up the pills and was all, that would totally be...at least a new pair of shoes! So I told Nick the happy news about how I might dispose of my pills and purchase new footwear all in one fell swoop.

And he was all, "Yes, that's a terrific idea! If you want to be a drug dealer! And go to jail!"

"I wouldn't actually be a drug dealer. I'd just..."

"You'd just be, what? Selling them?"

Oh. Not so much.

Turns out giving them away was also a bad idea. In the end we flushed them. Although the FDA recommended it, I still felt bad about it.

I mean, I was thinking about how the alligators in the everglades have smaller penises than their forebears because of all the estrogen in the water, and Oxycodone can't be helpful.