This is Your Blog on Drugs

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was known to power through marathon writing binges after gorging on bangers and mash washed down with opium and morphine. Oscar Wilde would often sit up all night drinking absinthe, hallucinate, and then write plays like “The Importance of Being Ernest.” (Many of his fans were disappointed upon learning that the film was nothing like the Cliff Notes). Alan Ginsburg used marijuana and nitrous oxide to expand his horizons and induce poetic visions when kishke and chicken soup weren’t up to the task. Carlos Castaneda transformed himself from nebbish to nebbishly chic with the aide of peyote and a mysterious medicine man (who no one else ever saw) inspiring the counter-culture hit: "The Teachings of Don Juan." Anais Nin liked reading Aldous Huxley, but not as much as she liked dropping acid, which, she said, allowed her to “understand the infinite.”

     We here at Honk if you Like Honking would like to understand the infinite. Unfortunately, as many of you know, we can’t even understand the tilde (~) key. This seems unfair, as we’re certain that, just as in days of old (or, at least, middle age), serious artists are still sprucing up their creative expression with performance-enhancing hallucinogens. We thought we might level the playing field by trying our hand at a little shamanism of our own.  Strictly for the good of the craft, you understand.

     We scrounged around the HIYLH offices, and we couldn’t find hide nor hair of LSD. Ditto Opium. We even looked under the office cat to see if he was sitting on any peyote. He was not. We pulled the throw out from under him, and he went flying up in the air angrily, paws akimbo, claws out, -- just long enough for us to check between the cracks in the cushions to see if any morphine had slipped down under there. Not a smidgen. This was a disappointment albeit, a minor setback, as we have always been willing to persevere for the benefit of elite intellectual pursuits long past the time that persons of inferior stamina would have given up and succumbed to the charms of the Cooking Channel. We pressed on, because we could have sworn that we had once seen some absinthe in the wood shed. We were wrong.  But at least now we know where the pliers are. 

     Over time, we managed to overcome the aforementioned obstacles. We found alternate substances appropriate for our foray into the realm of substance-inspired literary creation. How? We won’t bore you with the details.  We’ve already done that for the last three paragraphs.  Instead, we take you directly to the results.

Written Under the Influence of Vicks Vapo-Rub

There are certain places where you should not put Vicks Vapo-Rub.

Do I have to draw you a picture?

Written under the Influence of Antacid/Calcium Supplement (FreshMint)

Hour 1

Why should “FRESHMINT” be one word?

Do they think we won’t notice if it’s in ALL CAPS?

The “fresh” part seems kind of redundant.

It’s not like if they just said “mint” we might worry that it had gone bad because they had neglected to put the “fresh” in there.  Nobody reads the word “mint” on a bottle and thinks “Hmmm.  I wonder if it’s gone bad.” 

I thought I heard something. Are these walls talking? It sounds like “Feed me. Feed me.” Wow!  What’s in this stuff, anyway?  I’m hallucinegating now for sure!

Hour 2

I’ve been staring at this bottle for 2 hours. I just now realized that if I peel the label back, there’s a coupon underneath for $1.00 off towards the next purchase of FRESHMINT!  But wait!  What’s this!? “Coupon may not be bought, transferred, or sold!” There’s got to be a way around this.  It sounds like an unreasonable restraint of trade. Maybe there’s a black market in FRESHMINT coupons. I wish I had a guy I could call.

Wait a minute!  “Black market!?” I don’t do that sort of thing! Is this the antacid talking?

Hour 3

These pills aren’t half bad.

I could definitely survive in a lifeboat with these for a couple of weeks, at least if I had to. After a while, the chalkiness kind of grows on you. It’s an acquired taste.

Written under the Influence of Antihistamine (Nighttime/Drowsy)

My head feels as though someone has stuffed cotton balls between my ears (i.e. in my head). I have the sensation of being here and being not here at the same time.  I have the urge to operate heavy machinery or a motor vehicle, but something tells me I shouldn’t. I hear the walls talking, again. They are saying “Feed me. Feed Me.  I’m bored, and I just gotta knock some glass thing off the counter and break it or I will go insane!” What could this mean?

          In this altered state, I have the illusion of the cat ripping the shit out of the back of the armchair by the window. I want to strangle him at this moment, and, perhaps, operate a motor vehicle or heavy machinery. Instead, I just sit here, disempowered by the drug. All the while, from someplace (I don’t know where), I hear the eerie refrain:  “Feed me!  Feed me!”

           My eyelids are getting heavy.  They should restrict their caloric intake or try the Paleo diet.

Post-Script Upon Coming Out of the Antihistamine-Induced Trance

          What a wild night! How much time has gone by? It’s unreal. I have virtually no recollection of anything. I’m like Ray Milland in “The Lost Weekend.”

          I notice that the back of the armchair has been torn to shreds, as though it had been clawed to death by a wild beast!  How could this have happened?  What other strange goings-on have transpired during my vacation from the here and now?

Written under the Influence of Expired Baby Aspirin

     The Infinite paid me a midnight visit while I was sitting in the breakfast nook thinking about having a pop tart.

       “What have you got to eat?” said the Infinite without even moving its lips.

       “Nothing,” I replied.

       “Don’t lie to me!” admonished the Infinite.  I can see right through your refrigerator door.”

       “Oh, alright,” I complained.  “Why don’t you help yourself to a Puddin’ Pop?”

       “I’d rather have the leftover arugula,” insisted the Infinite.

       “But it’s gone bad!” I protested.

       “Oh that doesn’t matter,” said the Infinite.  “It’s all good.”

       Really?  Really? Leftover bad arugula over a Puddin’ Pop?

       I’ll never understand the Infinite.