goldfish cocktail

It takes about three or four shots for you to really feel anything.  Once you get enough dextromethorphan in your system, though, you start to disassociate.  The high school kids call it ‘robo-tripping’, where you drink lots of cough syrup to catch a buzz.  They look for the syrups with the most DXM and the fewest other active ingredients. 

This whole robo-tripping thing isn’t what I’m all about, though.  I’m genuinely sick and just starting to lose my mind as a side effect. Sometimes you can spot someone on one of these trips because of his robot-like walking.  Just this morning, I spent five whole minutes standing in front of my car debating over whether or not my headlights were really off.

They were.

One of my friends who goes to a different college went on a binge where he drank a bottle of cough syrup every day for a few weeks.  I would get these weird e-mails from him where he talked about hallucinations he was having and the strange emotions he was experiencing.  I kind of dismissed these things when I read them, but now I think I can relate.

To me, a shot of dayquil is worse than a shot of vodka.  With the vodka, once it’s down, you’re done.  With the dayquil, you have to do a second, mini-shot to get the syrup that stuck to the little plastic shooter the first time.  The sticky, orange liquid starts to gum up not just your mouth and throat, but your brain as well.

And you might be wondering, ‘If it’s so bad, why don’t you just not take it?’  This is a valid question.  The reason is because it works.  When you can’t swallow because your throat feels like it’s filled with murderous knife-wielding midgets, you need to take something.  When you’re coughing up phlegm flecked with blood, you really can’t do without some kind of over-the-counter cough syrup.

What would be really nice is some of that yellow cough syrup with the codeine in it that they gave me in eleventh grade.  Just one capful and you could be drunk in class all day, with your written prescription keeping you immune from administrative repercussions.  Ah, those were the days.

The thing I’m starting to notice is that I just suddenly find myself in strange places.  It’s like sleepwalking and waking up in someone’s living room naked.  I’m stuck in traffic one minute, and the next minute I’m walking down Serpentine Boulevard holding a plastic sack full of fireworks.

That’s where I am right now.  I’m not quite sure why I decided to bring these fireworks here, but I’m not one to second-guess my own intentions, especially when they involve fire.  I’m a big fan of fire.

Let’s see what I packed for today.  It looks like it’s mostly black cats.  I’m just walking past random houses, lighting the fuses at the end of each little packet and setting them in the orange plastic newspaper receptacles.  One might think I have a grudge against the D’Starkville Diatribe…

There aren’t any people out here.  The little kids are all at school, and their parents are at work.  It’s just overcast enough that the people who stay at home are staying inside to avoid these trace water droplets I can’t even call rain.

Every minute or so, I can hear a string of small, forceful explosions.  It’s not really powerful enough to blow up the newspaper thingy, but afterwards the inside is smeared black and littered with paper shrapnel.  After every few mailboxes I stop and pound on my chest.  It’s not very productive, because when I cough I’m only getting very small chunks to come up.  And dad says I need to quit smoking.  Ha.

And I regain my sense of self again.  This time I find me spacing at a cup of coffee in one of those 24-hour chain restaurants.  My cigarette is burning in the ashtray in front of me, and my friend Janus is staring at me like I’m a leper or something.

“Hey, Paxton, you all right?”  he asks.

“Yeah…sure.  I guess I was just out of it for a minute.”

He nods and takes another drink of his own coffee.  This kid is either my best friend or my biggest fan, I can’t decide which.  Every two weeks or so we meet here so he can buy me lunch.  In return, I tell him about my exploits with all the strange girls I meet.

Janus is maybe three years younger than me, so I consider myself his mentor.  I have to teach him all the important rules for dating.  The first thing I ever taught him was this: always kill the girl’s fish. 

This is not just some random act of destruction, it contains lots of psychological significance.  You are sending her a message, that you are the one with the power.  It symbolizes closure and finalty, and keeps you from having to deal with the awkward post-one-night-stand second date. 

The method is unimportant.  If you’re lazy, you can just scoop them out of the tank and flush them while she’s still asleep.  Some people like to poison them.  Others like to put them in the blender.  Personally, I like to take them out of the tank and hide them under the couch cushions.  If they go unfound long enough, the stink can become unbearable.

And the waitress brings me a glass with soda and ice in it.  There's one of those bendy straws in it and Janus looks surprised as I shout at her for bringing me a straw.

"Straws are a conspiracy," I explain to him.

I know it seems a little difficult to believe when I phrase it like that, but think about it. When you drink something through a straw, you oftentimes don’t drink as much of it and this saves restaurants money when it comes to those free refills. It’s cheaper to just pacify you a little with a straw.

Skeptical? Think of this, when you go to a bar and order a beer, do they give you a straw? Hell no, they want you to chug it. They want you to gulp it down and order another one.

Janus just looks kind of confused and says, "Nobody's stopping you from just taking the damn thing out, you know."

Somehow I've slipped out of focus again. Now I’m driving. I’m on my way to visit the next random girl. I meet them everywhere: on the bus, the internet, standing outside the Kaufman Center smoking cigarettes. Getting the phone number is the easy part. The hard part is remembering the girl’s name.

And every time it’s the same. Women can’t give directions. They don’t know the names of streets. They give you landmarks. They say ‘follow the road with the little gas station with the red sign, and if you come to the bridge with the yellow rails, you’ve gone too far.’

In Japan it’s the same way. They don’t name the roads. The postal system is efficient, yet indecipherable even to native citizens. The Japanese are big on maps. They love to draw them for you.

Chigatte kudasai! I’m at a red light. If you ask a stop-light to please become green for you in Japanese it works better than English. I suspect this is because the microchips in the stoplight are likely from Japan.

This girl, today’s girl, her name is Abbey. Or Mary. I know it’s one of those two. Sometimes you can tell a story about your bad driver’s license picture and she will feel compelled to tell you how unhappy she is with hers and show it to you. This is a prime opportunity to re-learn her name.

If she calls you and you have this problem, just ask her how she spells her name because you’re writing it in your address book. If you call her and you don’t know, but she answers, just introduce yourself and start talking and you may get some sort of clue as the conversation progresses.

You should never underestimate the power of good phone charisma. One time, I started a conversation with a girl who called my home number on accident, trying to reach someone else. We talked for a while and a few days later we met. I assumed because she had a cute voice she would be cute, and this time I was right. There have been other times when this has not been the case.

And now I’m in an apartment complex. There are about seven thousand identical buildings here and it’s going to take some time to find apartment number 7315 in this mess.

Here's the second thing I ever tried to teach Janus: never date a girl who still lives with her parents. You won’t take this advice, but at least make sure she comes to your house instead of vice-versa. Even if she’s older, like 23, there’s always that off-chance her mother or little sister will walk in and catch you with your pants down. This happened to me exactly once. This little girl just walked right into the room, stared at us for a few seconds with her mouth agape, and then walked away. It was a little creepy. I know I never want to see my mom with duct tape around her wrists and a carrot wedged inside her hoo-hah.
 

(c) 2004 j baugher