The Side Effects are What’ll Get Ya

I was recently on the receiving end of a dose of antibiotics.

I will be forever grateful.

But prescription drugs come with extras.

“Avoid Direct Sunlight.”  “May Cause Dizziness.”  “May Cause Vivid Dreams”.

Avoid direct sunlight?  It’s Minneapolis in January. 

Done.

And it causes dizziness? I accept the challenge.  Insufficient Eustachian tubes ensure that I never take my balance for granted.  How would I know if the spins were organic or not? 

But the vivid dreams --

May Cause Vivid Dreams.

That one’s mine.  That’s my side effect.

For years now, and long before I had actually read the fine print, I have known that some drugs cause nightmares.  Under their direction, I’ve woken from deep sleeps shaking and terrified, eyes wide, scanning the darkness for unnamed assailants.

But this prescription?

This one?

I had a dream the other night that was just about the poorest excuse for a dream I’ve ever had.

The details are fuzzy – I was asleep at the time – but I know the following things:

I am rock climbing, except it is primarily sand.  In the middle of a particularly tasty slope I manage to dislodge a boulder.  It rolls to the center of the quaint dirt road at the bottom of the ravine, where it stops and ensures that some unknown animal just beyond it is stuck in the barn without feed.

Concurrently, I find that I’ve been locked in a bathroom.  There is a man in a black suit, looking a bit like Rod Serling, trying to get in through the window.  “Have you,” he shouts through the glass, “accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into your life as your personal lord and savior?”

It is at this time that I poop my pants.  It is a surprisingly clean, nonchalant affair. 

Really, if I hadn’ta told ya, you’da never knowed.

It is shortly after this that I am physically encroached upon in such a ridiculously inept display of eagerly budding sexuality that I shudder to recall it.  It was earnest, it was awkward – Let’s just say that the words “fumble” and “ham-handed” spring to mind and call it a day.

The dreams caps itself off with me waking myself by biting the hands I have tucked under my chin.

I bite myself awake.

I am grateful, of course, for the drugs, and know that there are far more serious side effects available to me. 

But I just can’t shake that awful make-out session.