I rarely take medications. It’s not a personal vendetta against the pharmaceutical companies, although ever since the invention of “restless legs syndrome” I’ve been kind of gun-shy on their ability to cure me of anything important. I’m also not a hippie or any kind of purist, because I’ve decided if you’re willing to put as many Doritos and marshmallows into your body as I do, a few pills aren’t going to hurt anything. I’m basically just freakishly healthy. Every time I actually get sick enough to see a doctor I end up having to fill out all new forms because their computers kicked me out of the system as probably being deceased.

That makes me pretty much a lightweight in the pill-popping department, which is probably why one of the three things I’m supposed to be taking for my neck is now in the bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity. I tried for several days to get used to the side effects, but I couldn’t do it anymore. The first problem was very real, vivid dreams, the kind that make you more tired in the morning than when you went to bed because your brain wouldn’t shut the hell up while you were trying to sleep. I distinctly remember waking up in the middle of the first night and walloping the crap out of my poor husband for stealing my artificial legs. What kind of A-hole steals a woman’s fake legs and hides them where she can’t get to them? (He’s just as confused by this as you are.)

The little pill deal-breaker for me was when I started hallucinating, which was clearly NOT written on the package insert as a possible side effect. I realize that hallucinations are ultimately a by-product of the owner’s subconscious, and therefore, things that are already manifested somehow in her brain. Sadly, my hallucinations were as boring as I am.

One of my first hallucinations was dryer lint all over my shirt. Jim Morrison gets to see rainbow colors and flying unicorns when he’s high, I just keep seeing fuzz all over my laundry. Another one was the feeling that my ponytail holder was sliding off my ponytail. That’ll keep those patients in rehab going nuts for hours. Possibly the only scary hallucination was a Jewish mother-in-law complaining about my cooking and my housekeeping. The joke’s on her, I don’t cook or clean and my husband’s not Jewish. I totally took her down with my verbal ninja skills.

Since the neck-curing pills aren’t working out I’ve decided to just keep leaning my head to one side like I’m deep in thought, so I’ve been practicing my pensive look. Unfortunately, the sideways head and the deep-in-thought face only convince people around me that I might be having a stroke. I don’t even want to think about the pills I’d have to take for that.