the 941

Last night I couldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was because I accidentally took a power nap in the easy chair earlier that evening. At any rate, I gave up after an hour or so and sat out on the mat of cigarette butts and nesting material that is my front porch. I took a glass of warm milk, but my energy was still humming.

A friend who was crashing on my couch offered up something that he said might do the trick. The bottle said Natura Relief herbal supplements, for anxiety/bipolar disorder. I took one, but I didn’t feel anything.

If only there were a way to make this more effective, I thought. But there was. For the two months I’ve lived in this house, I’ve seen my three roommates blow oxycodone pills just about every day. On a book in one of their rooms, on the glass coffee table in the living room. One of them told me they make him feel “at peace with the world.”

I’d never snorted anything before –I did go to college in Gainesville, but for whatever reason I just never tried – so I was more than a little curious about the experience. I dumped one of the green herbal supplements out onto the coffee table and, using the twenty I’d rolled up, arranged it into a thin line. Then I plugged one nostril and – snuuuup!

Ow. Owww! It burns! I paced quickly around the house, rubbing my chest, sniffling and wheeze-coughing. I felt like I had a sinus cold, plus my chest was seized up. My nose was running. I didn’t want to blow it, though, and lose the relaxation that was working through my mucus channels.

But eventually I couldn’t help it. When I did, the tissue paper showed a scattering of little green particles, like in that gum that has flavor crystals. Precious relaxation, lost to my boogers. I hoped they enjoyed it!

After a while, the defensive spasms of my body calmed down. I did feel a little slack, but it could have been that I was just drained from the whole experience. Both of my nostrils were completely plugged up. I still wasn’t sleepy, unfortunately, but I felt kind of disassociated, kind of groovy. I stayed up chatting until about three thirty.

This morning I told one of my roommates, the one who’s just kicked his pill habit, about my experiment last night. “I’ll bet that hurt,” he said.

“Why?”

“Well you blew a foreign substance up your nose.”

“But why doesn’t it hurt when you guys do it?”

“We snort painkillers, so we don’t feel it. And coke is numbing, so…” he shrugged his shoulders. “Plus Roxy(codon) is a concentrated chemical, and we grind it up really fine. This stuff is, like, plant matter, big particles,” he said, looking at one of our green pills.

It’s true. Among the pills’ ingredients were rice flour, the metallic element selenium, and various herbs.

Today the right side of my nose is still plugged up. My roommate told me that his sense of smell is nearly shot, and whenever he has the sniffles, his nose flows uncontrollably. But at least he enjoys his habit more.

Oh well. When you have a nasty experience, you can always try to redeem it by extracting a lesson. This one? It’s not always good to go organic.

Bookmark to:

Posted in Whatnot | Leave a comment