Amnesia Anyone?

I have a smallpox scar. I have a smallpox scar from having smallpox stuffed into me with a needle by the government. I was five when the government gave me smallpox. Okay, they gave me a teeny, tiny speck of smallpox, but the scar is still ugly.

Since then I’ve been inoculated, biopsied, C-sectioned, extracted, stapled, stitched, sliced and diced. And now I’m crazy. When I go to the doctor my CO2 levels go way up, because I hyperventilate, and when I go to the dentist my blood pressure sky rockets. Oddly enough, getting sharp objects jammed into body parts does not get easier with time.

Now, I have to be drugged out of my mind when I have to have sharp objects jammed into body parts.

I am a cancer-surviving pansy.

For my latest dental torture session on Thursday, my dentist and his gang gave me a sedative-hypnotic. It made me go to sleep for Thursday—the whole day—and I didn’t read the “medication guide” until AFTER the procedure.

 What a hoot. Those medicine-warning labels are the funniest reading on earth, in my opinion. Who writes those things?

Apparently, a side effect of taking a sedative-hypnotic can be something called “traveler’s amnesia.” This is side effect that can cause someone to be (and I quote) “NOT fully awake and do an activity that they will NOT remember doing. Reported activities include: driving a car (sleep driving), making and eating food, talking on the phone, having sex, and sleep-walking.” Since Thursday has disappeared from my memory, I have developed a vague sense of unease about the “travel amnesia” possibilities.

What if, at some point during my Thursday—all day—nap, I put on a gypsy outfit, drove to the lakefront, and played a tambourine for loose change? What if I went horseback riding—naked? What if I drove my John Deere lawn tractor to the Florida Mall, so I could buy a pretzel, with salt? What if I killed somebody?

Traveler’s amnesia. Yikes.

What if I joined a motorcycle gang, got a tattoo of a giant butterfly on my right butt cheek, and promised to be a drug mule?

What if . . . oh . . .wait a minute . . . there’s something here under the bedcovers. Hey . . . what the . . . it’s a tambourine, and there’s a buck twenty-three in it.

I can’t seem to find the gypsy outfit.

So, was I naked while playing the tambourine? Amnesia is so annoying.

Linda (No More Cavities) Zern