I sat down in Culver's, tore the wrapper off of my straw and started eating. This is a routine for me, because Culver's has soup, and I like soup. I go, get soup, sit, eat soup, and read. When I finish my soup, I knit.
Today was slightly different. And, since my life is so dredged with routine that any small deviation is enough to amuse and astound me, I thought I would share.
Bent over my Kindle, opening and closing my left eye in an attempt to force it to focus on the print in front of me (I have an eye appointment this Friday, my prescription has changed), the text suddenly jumped. Stupid eye, I thought. Could you at least try to see? Do you need to make letters swirl around in such a--
But it wasn't just the book. Indeed, the entire world was spinning like a centrifuge, leaving me to cling to the edge of the table as I resisted the forces pushing me back against the wall of the booth. Why were the businessmen behind me still talking about various pregnancies? They must have noticed this!
Of course, they didn't. Because, I realized, like most things, the spinning was only in my head. The real world went on unaffected as I--
Well, at that moment, I nearly became one with my soup bowl. I won't say I fainted. I didn't. But I came darn close.
I had a final mouthful of soup. Then I dumped the contents of my tray in the trash and drove over to Kroger, where I bought excessive quantities of Sudafed. I took some. Then I took Ibuprofen, because it's an anti-inflammatory, so I was betting it would reduce the swelling that might be what was causing my vertigo. Because that, my friends, was vertigo. I recognize it from back when I was in high school, when I volunteered in chem lab, melting glass with my friend Sabrina in order to spell the word "chemistry" with those little pipette things. We hung the letters up on the wall, and when I stood on the chair to secure one of the letters, Sabrina had to rescue me before I fell backward to my glass-infused death.
Why can't I get sick like a normal person? It seems that when one part of me breaks down, the rest of me goes with it.
The drug cocktail may be working, I don't know. What I do know, is that if this turns out to be caused by the same swelling in my ears that I supposedly treated two weeks ago with a course of antibiotics, I will be greatly displeased.
Until then, if you walk into a room to find me huddled on the ground, clinging to the carpet with claw-like fingers, know that it is because I am breaking down worse than my now-deceased 1991 Honda Civic.
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