Postaday for January 19th: Re-springing Your Step. Tell us about the last experience you had that left you feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated. What was it that had such a positive effect on you?
So this one time I had a really bad head cold. Or flu or pneumonia or some crazy illness. Could have been rickets for all I know. Please send me a Vine that describes what the hell rickets is. Is that the one from not eating limes? I don’t know.
At the time I lived about half a mile away from the mall, as the crows flies. Unfortunately for me, the crow flies over a highway and a community college. If I wanted to go to the mall, I had to walk a mile or so.
On that day, I did. Stuffed nose, fever, congestion, body aches. My eyes felt like they were full of hot sand. My hands felt puffy. My lower back hurt. I put on jeans and a shirt and another shirt and a sweater and a scarf and a hat. I think I may have passed out for a few minutes when I tried to put on my thick socks.
And then I stepped out into the rain. More of an irritating drizzle, really. I trudged my way to the mall. That day, if I recall, I’d decided to see if going south first and then north was the same distance as walking north first. For the record: it wasn’t. It was longer. And there were more hills.
But I made it to the mall and wandered around until I remembered WHY I was there (to eat lunch) and WHERE the food court was (the south end. This mall has only one hall, so finding things is a simple as walking from one end to other).
Before I ate, I stopped at GNC and bought some pills. These were, specifically, weight loss pills. Back then there were legal. Then they were made illegal because some idiot swallowed a bottle of them, drank a half a case of beer, got into a car wreck, and died. They blamed the pills. Not the alcohol, not the blunt-force trauma to his head. The pills. Later, they legalized them again, but the damage was done, and no one sells them anymore.
But back then they did and I got some and took the recommended dosage. I had taken them before, knew what the dosage was, and had no intention of taking too many. I went to lunch, tacos, I think.
Then I got bored and decided to walk home. Here’s the thing— those pills? They do something to histamines. I don’t know what it is. They’re not anti-histamines per se, but let me tell you something— halfway home, they kicked in.
Every ache and pain went away. My nose cleared up. My eyes cleared up. I had a bounce in my step. I got home, and fired up the Playstation. Played Dance Dance Revolutions for hours. Sweated all that sickness out of myself.
And that’s its. There’s no moral to this story, no ironic ending. I sometimes miss those pills, but not too often. The last time I can remember feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated was in 2005.