In Vino, Stercum

Are you familiar with those interesting out-of-body experiences that we humans have?

I had an inside-body experience today. It was not as pleasant as I was led to believe.

My husband and I had a very busy day yesterday. We were Dispathi-ing a room.

What does that mean?

Dispathi - verb; adverb and adjective Dispathying - the art of removing a person, with all the articles within the room down to rugs and curtains and trash, in a time frame where the person's abuser has left the house. Named after a Mr. Dispathi, whose parents actually held him hostage during high school in their house but made him pay for everything in his room - his furniture, his clothing, his stereo and records, and would "confiscate" things when he argued against their keeping him in the house for anything other than church and school. No friends, no college, no extracurricular activities, nothing. The parents went to church, and every single thing was removed from the room, including the trash and light bulbs and curtains, since he paid for it all. They debated taking the door to his room as well, but 1) He didn't pay for it, and 2) He was never allowed to fully close it because "you might have a GIRL in there!" It took more hours than it should have for the "mother" to glance in and realize the light looked different, open the door fully, and freak out. She actually filed a missing persons report, and was laughed out of the station. Dispathi was eighteen, and couch surfed till he graduated.

If any of you have read my Crazy Friend John stories, you may have detected that CFJ just might have something to do with the above. Maybe? But this is a thing that both my hubby and I have fully embraced, both in theory and practical application. We have Dispathied many a room or house over the years, allowing abuse victims to vanish from their abusers' lives, and go on to establish themselves somewhere else.

But I am not as young as I used to be, and being on the road for thirteen hours around NYC have taken their toll. And I can only have one caffeinated beverage a week, so yesterday I had a second. I'm feeling the effects today, in the dull caffeine headache I'm gritting through.

Speaking of a drunk-like state...

I am deathly allergic to alcohol. I take a swallow, I'm a dead chick on the hoof, to horribly conflate metaphors. Like, take bets if I survive the trip to the hospital, allergic. I'm a cheap date. I've known since puberty, when some moron forgot to set the inner ring of communion wine as grape juice for our AA folks, and I got drunk within moments. In the choir loft. With half a service to go. Apparently I was smiling and swaying with the force of the holy spirits, not the Holy Spirit. My bestie kicked me hard to try to snap me out of whatever, and I didn't feel it. (Had a hard bruised knot for weeks on my calf and didn't know how I got it till she confessed. She wore cowboy boots. Owwie.) The anaphylactic shock didn't hit till we processed down the center aisle (whee!), around the corner (wheee!), down the stairs (bobbity bippity hippity stumble hop), second set of stairs (hoppity hippity badda badda whoop leeeeap nail the landing hee hee), hit the threshold of the choir room, and THEN my throat closed. My poor uncle found me drinking water like I was in the desert. It was my first, but not quite serious enough, attack for stubborn we-never-go-to-doctors Penna Dutch to take me to the hospital. This was also the eighties. We were not civilized enough to understand how serious allergies were.

With all that being blathered at you, the point I mean to arrive at is this: I never bought that "In Vino Veritas" crap.

I get it. Inhibitions are lowered, so therefore truth is supposed to flow? I don't buy it. Alcohol is not truth serum.

With that background, let's return to today. I was exhausted. I was zoned out. My hubby was giving me a back rub, which was making me very melt-y. And then I had the weirdest conversation with myself:

My Brain: Hey, what's the most stupid thing you could say right now?

My Brain: Um, I dunno..."I want a divorce?"

My Brain: Yeah!! Say that!!

My Brain: Dude, whut?

If, as the saying goes, I'd rolled my d20 at that moment and rolled a 1, would I have said that out loud?

A good friend of mine is hypoglycemic, and she's a mean drunk. She says that the few times she's gotten drunk, she's said horrible things. She didn't care if they're true or not, she just said them. Almost destroyed some relationships, claiming knowledge of sneaky hookups and situations that never happened.

I think that's what I experienced.

A few years ago, I had to be hospitalized for some serious illnesses. When I was sprung, they'd forgotten that I'm an extra light touch when it comes to meds. Over-medicated, I was exhibiting all the symptoms of early onset dementia. When it all came to a head, I stopped taking my meds. In my state, I thought, why bother? I don't want to live feeling like this. And my mind started to clear. I fired two of my doctors, laid my concerns on the line with my primary doc, and she and I came up with a new health plan that involved taking micro-doses that didn't interfere with my diagnoses. Those micro-doses now do not interact with each other and my symptoms, like they did before. It almost killed me, having my physical hypoglycemic symptoms become completely overpowered by my medications' drug interactions. No headache, no shakes, blood sugar measured at 40mg/dL and dropping like a rock. Three cans of caffeinated soda in a row didn't stop the plunge. (That's very, VERY bad. Just saying.) I am now on a quarter dose of one medication, and for the two heart meds, I have to cut the lowest dosage they make in half every day. My official paperwork says "lick the pill."

Why do I mention all this? Because I remember thinking some odd thoughts when I was in that fugue-like state. Self-destructive, selfish, outrageous thoughts. Okay, if you've read some of my stories, I'm already more than a few degrees off plumb. The last thing I need is a medication combo pushing the plumb so far off center that it looks like a tether ball in a hurricane. If this is what I would act like if I could ever get drunk, I think my social life and marital standing would have been... compromised. Yeah, that's a good word. Destroyed? Obliterated? Utterly annhiliated? Those are closer to the truth.

For some, maybe alcohol does in fact act like truth serum, and they spill the secrets that have been bothering them. But for me, it just puts my censor to sleep. I honestly do not need to open my mouth and toss whatever whackadoodle idea that popped into my head to see the light of day. That's why I write stories, to give some of them shape and purpose. But some of the really out there ideas? Look, I'm telling you, we do NOT need to bring back the odd colors of ketchup so I can make coffee foam-like art on cheeseburgers at the next summer picnic!

Or Oscar-worthy gowns that incorporate hamster wheels within cages. Or bringing back eighteenth century French hair styles, but with the hamster cage instead of the three-masted ships. What I have against hamsters, even I don't know. Maybe replace them with squirrels? Let them loose at halftime? That could make for an interesting story...

See, this is why I shouldn't be out in public without a minder. And these are even the milder forms of some of the nutzy stuff, do not ask me about risque subjects!! Suffice it to say I have a folder of story snippets that will never be seen.

But if you see a plumb bob skipping down the street, giggling as it bounces merrily, broken string trailing behind it like a silk flag in the wind, look for me nearby. And maybe worry just a little at the next story I write.