I got a flu shot a couple of days ago, convinced by the wild
media reports of rampant illness and bodies stacked like cordwood on the side
of the road. That’s the best thing about
a media driven health scare. It’s never “some people
may get sick, you’ll feel like crap for a few days”. The focus is always “authorities believe that
children and senior citizens will drop like flies, and normal healthy adults will
be relegated to immeasurable fevers, left twisting in their sweat under filth laden
sheets”. I got sold. I bought in.
$31 later at a local CVS where a woman probably no more qualified than a
Jiffy Lube employee shot me full of live influenza virus, I was on my way.
Despite feeling 100% normal prior to the injection, I
immediately began to feel that slightly achy, bad sinus combination that is
usually the harbinger of some type of awful winter illness. I had an odd night of sleep the first night,
but the real feature presentation was last night. Wild dreams involving me flying military jets
dropping napalm on screaming citizens.
Walking around street fairs in New Orleans where everyone was in costume
but me. A big peroxide blonde curvy
woman in a 1980s pant suit that looked vaguely like Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke that
gave me car keys on a leather key chain and demanded I pick up her daughter despite me having no idea
who her daughter was or where she might be located. Walking around a dusty weathered abandoned century
home, the creaking floorboards leading to a furnished bedroom where a woman cried and
asked me to help her. She wouldn’t tell
me what she needed help with, and soon sat on the edge of the bed looking at me
wide eyed. We then sat down and started
writing songs, one of which she solved with the perfect chord change, one that
was so obvious yet totally hidden to me.
Sadly, I can't remember the tune. I was then picked up at the house by military police, led back to the
aircraft carrier, where I took off in the plane and began the dream cycle
again. It repeated three times. I woke up more tired than when I
went to bed.
While waiting to get my flu shot at the CVS, I noticed a
product on sale I am eager to try.
ZzzQuil Nighttime Sleep-Aid has a “warming berry flavor” and claims to
be “non-habit forming”. It looks exactly
like Nyquil but offers no cold relief, which I take to mean it is a syrupy
alcohol without any decongestants. I
think it is like a really bad digestivo, slightly more hellish than Kummerling or Underberg. Is this something that should be sold at a pharmacy or should it be sold at a liquor store? I love the fact that this product is available at all,
and that the Nyquil people are now embracing the fact that most people use
Nyquil strictly to feel The Velvet Glove of its embrace. I cannot ever recall hearing anyone say “That
Nyquil cleared me up”. I do recall
hearing people make a low moaning sound as if remembering a tryst with a secret
lover. That moan you hear? That is what is commonly referred to in
Business 101 classes as “product demand”.
The move tonight might be to combine the lingering effects
of this injection with ZzzzQuil Nighttime Sleep-Aid to see exactly what
happens. Whenever I take Nyquil, it’s
like riding the Syrup Dragon. I can only
imagine the wild ride I will go on tonight.
In case I never wake up after taking a heavy dose of this “non-habit
forming nighttime sleep-aid”, remember me as an adventurer. If I wake, I will then look for the ultimate
thrill ride, “ZzzQuil DAYTIME Sleep-Aid”.
It must be out there somewhere…
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