Kelly and I (and briefly, Neil) have come down with some nasty respiratory bug. Maybe it’s influenza, maybe bronchitis, maybe pneumonia, but whatever it is, it is keeping us down, exhausted, and coughing like seals.
My anti-sicknessroutine have consisted of raw garlic; hot water with lemon, honey, and fenugreek; zinc mouthspray; loads of orange juice; and the spiciest hot sauce I know. Once I took some Tylenol, at Peter’s insistence. Whatever this is, it’s not deterred. So last night, in the hopes of giving my lungs a rest so I could sleep this illness away, I advanced to Nyquil. Unfortunately, we had no Nyquil, since I usually refuse to take such hard drugs, so I resorted to nipping my daughter’s cold medicine that night.
It was just enough to give me flashbacks to the last time I was hit this hard and took drugs. (I’ve been this sick before in the last few years, but it usually takes a serious intervention by Peter for me to move beyond my holistic hippie cures.)
I think it was 2005, Peter’s parents were living in Las Vegas, and we headed out to spend Christmas with them. On the way, a cold I was hoping would fade became worse, and I was coughing and hacking when we arrived. We had some celebratory wine with the parents, and on the way to our hotel room, Peter bought a bottle of Nyquil. I took a dose, and the party began.
In short, wine and cold medication do not mix well. At all. I barely remember the rest of the trip, though I can recall throwing up in the hotel toilet, and wandering along a street in North Las Vegas, wrapped in a multi-colored macrame blanket. Days later, when I was back to my senses, my friend Chris called me and said “You were out of it.” Oh, really, how did she know? Oh wait, she lives it North Las Vegas and that was her blanket I’d wrapped myself in.
Priest Elvis may or may not have given the midnight mass that year; either it was a hallucination, or I passed out right after he appeared. As for the rest of my adventures, I don’t remember them, but Peter assures me it was nothing that hasn’t been seen in Las Vegas before. Hunter S. Thompson would be ashamed of me, but that’s ok, because there was only one Hunter S. Thompson in this world, and no one should take his place.
And as for me now, I will drink some real Nyquil (which Peter bought today). But I will not be mixing it with wine.