You know, I never was a Lexotanil or Xanax kind of girl. I would take Nyquil sometimes, but only on long flights to and from Lahore during my summer or winter vacations. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Vicks Nyquil is a treasure chest of fun time. It’s an over-the-counter cold and flu medication (with an edge, of course) that is available in the States (unfortunately, you cannot find it here in Lahore), and man, it puts you in the perfect trance for air travel. The best thing about Nyquil is that it doesn’t knock you out. It simply puts you in a haze so that you can sleep for hours if you choose or stay awake in a dreamlike daze. You can even get up to eat when the flight attendant drags her trolley by and cuddle yourself back to sleep after. Plus (yes, there is another plus), you wake with super clear sinuses and the energy of a bear that just woke up after hibernation.
But enough about Nyquil. I have something to confess. For the past six months, I haven’t been able to sleep. It’s not like I don’t feel sleepy, it’s just that my mind starts racing every time I turn off the lights and lie in bed. Before I know it, it’s three hours later and I’m out of lives in all of the games I have installed on my phone and there’s nothing left to do but think (and we all know how much thinking sucks, right?). Like, guys, even the boys my age have started getting married now. Plus, not only have most of my gay friends gotten married, they have also started adopting babies *facepalm* (maybe my decision to resist an arranged marriage wasn’t such a great idea after all). I do have a few friends who aren’t married yet (thank god for them, seriously) but they choose to smoke up before bed to bring in the sleepies, and my mother is way too nosy to let any of that stuff fly in her household. So, when a friend of mine came to visit from the States and offered me an extra dose of Nyquil she had left over from her long flight back, I couldn’t say ‘no’.
“Who moved the matches?” Mona Churri burst into her daughter’s bedroom, wild with rage. She was ready to fight.
“What matches?” Zara replied, confused and amused at the same time. She was familiar with her mother’s fits of rage, and had become accustomed to shrugging them off as nature’s way to telling us that we will all go crazy one day.
“Your father couldn’t find the matches to turn on the heater today, and he’s been in a mood ever since. How many times have I told you guys to keep everything exactly where you found it?” Mona yelled.
“Mama, I didn’t turn on the heater in the lounge today. The boy probably took them to turn on the stove or something. Why is this such a big deal?”
“Because it is”, Mona barked. “Your father isn’t talking to me anymore and I’ll probably have to take a Lexotanil now just to go to bed!”
When the habitual user runs out of pills, they might suddenly develop a cough
***
This weekend, for the first time in my life, I took Nyquil as a (non-flight related) sleep aid. Soon, I began to feel my toes tingle and my body go numb. It felt good, yes, and for a while I truly believed that I was in for a good night’s sleep. Boy, I was wrong. I literally ended up staying awake till 7 am in the morning in anticipation of finally zonking out. In fact, much like a jealous girlfriend who throws a fit every time her territory is threatened, my mind went on the defensive and began to actively counter the sleep aid’s attempts to knock me out. It’s a strange thing, you know, realizing that you’re on the cusp of becoming a pill-popping auntie. It’s an even stranger thing to realize that you’re actually much stronger than that.
It's a strange thing, you know, realising that you're on the cusp of becoming a pill-popping auntie
***
After yelling at both her daughters, Mona made her way straight to her bedroom, making it a point to taunt her husband for his idiocy on the way. She slammed the door shut and bee lined for the bedside drawer. Hastily, she rummaged through receipts, odd bits of jewelry, and pieces of cotton swabs for about fifteen minutes before she finally collapsed on her bed and began to weep. She was out of Lexotanil and she had the whole night ahead of her. What could she do? Then, suddenly, it struck her. She dashed to the medicine cabinet and fished out the cough syrup. A few tablespoons of this would do the trick.
