Wedding Vows and Chloroseptic

It's been since Tuesday now that the second battle against the evil strepp throat has raged on in the back of my mouth. "It's no big deal really" I told myself "you pretty much just slept it off last week and you were fine." All I needed was a little numbing action from my handy dandy trusty chloroseptic bottle and everything would be right as rain.

Fast forward to Friday morning and allow me to set the scene for you:

After being woken up in a strange bedroom by the inability to swallow this morning, I went to the bathroom at the friend's house I was staying at in lieu of the wedding that I am to be in tomorrow morning in Medicine Hat. It was there, in the depths of southern Saskatchewan, that while gargling an entire mouthful of the local anesthetic, I inadvertantly swallowed over 4 times the recommended limit due to a tickle in my throat.

My kingdom for a time machine...

Had I known what was to transpire over the next 10 hours I would have forced myself to instantly vomit up the concentrated evil I had just put down my soon to be numbed oral cavity. THAT, however would not make for a very good story and we've all guessed at least a couple lines ago that yes, I did in fact go back to bed.

To be woken up 45 minutes later with the queerest feeling in the top of my stomach. "How odd" I thought sitting up and rubbing my hand over the area of my lower chest that was beginning to feel increasingly tospy turvy, "I'm sure it's just a little side effect of the chloroseptic that'll wear off soon enough."

An hour later I was in that position we've all found ourselves in during moments of intense pain without a forseeable ending, negotiating with God, begging, pleading, offering up my own mother while in the fetal position on the bathroom floor of some poor family now wondering what sort of strange, animal noises are eminating from behind the door.

Knowing that there was a wedding reception to go to though, I peeled myself off the floor long enough to stumble to my car, doubled over and unable to stand upright without going dizzy from pain in my stomach. I'd always wondered what the guys in the Alien movies felt like just before the Alien ripped out from inside their chest cavities...

I wish I didn't know.

After only 20 minutes on the road however the dizzy spells were going to endanger the lives of my other passengers so I opted for the best solution I could think of at that point: I would resume my divine bargaining. This time curled up by the toilette of a tourist info stop on the Alberta border, puking like a prairie kid in a Pacific squall.

There's no adjectives to describe the next hour in that Info center bathroom. Rest assured that, even though said adjectives probably don't exist, I came up with a few on my own somewhere in that period of time.

The moral of this story though is this: If ever you drink anesthetic by accident and are pleading with your God to take your life in a Tourist Info center, just hold out for a few more minutes until you've eaten. Please stop and remember that you haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon and that the only reason this shit is staying in your gut is because it's empty.

I recommend Taco Time in a pinch. It goes down easy and makes an otherwise unbearable wedding reception tolerable (though still a little bit unbearable). Oh yea, I'm not really sick anymore...

But now I can't swallow again.

This has been a public service announcement and a test of the emergency broadcast system.