This is Your Brain on Off-Brand Cold Meds

I thought my cold was gone on Saturday, until I woke up Sunday feeling worse. The virus then proceeded to percolate in my body for the rest of the week, which left me feeling crappy as I had to miss a lot of classes, but was too sick to use my newfound free time for anything relatively productive like, I don't know, reading. Or knitting. Knitting would be nice- then I would have pictures to show people! Instead, I just worked at propagating my colony of used Kleenexes. I finally hauled ass down to a clinic today, because my throat started to hurt when I'd swallow, and I was worried that strep had decided to crash the part in my throat. The good news? I don't have strep! The bad news? I don't have strep, which means I just have some crazy virus symptoms that might take another week to go away, and I can't just zap them with some handy antibiotics. Oh, and I also spent an hour and a half in the waiting room to find this out.

So, what's a girl to do? She goes to Jean Coutu and hits up the cold and flu aisle to prepare a Molotov cocktail for what ails her, that's what she does. Off-brand Extra-Strength cold pills, cough syrup and name brand extra-strength Neo-Citran , they all went into my shopping cart. And a chocolate bar, whose medical use is questionable at best, but whose deliciousness is not. I then proceeded to dose myself liberally with all three, borrow a trashy romance novel from my roommate, and finally pass out in my bed. After a few more rounds, and the medicinal haze finally wearing off, a few revelations occurred to me. The first: holy crap, I do not want to live my life from my bed. The second: sweet Jesus, I need to get out more. The third: I need to get my shit together. The fourth: I just willingly read a book where the hero tells a hamster "I need sex." Here's hoping this moment of stunning clarity lasts longer than a few hours.