A bed is not adequately painful for a truly ugly cry; sometimes you need something hard that offers no comfort or means of escape. You’ve got to use the floor–preferably hardwood, no carpet.

You must lay face down, which crushes all internal organs and disrupts the natural flow of blood to your limbs.

Then–and this is crucial–you must ruminate for at least an hour, by which time you’ll have discovered exactly what makes you an irrevocably moronic piece of trash. This, of course, is a wonderful start.

You should then switch to fetal position.

At this point, you will begin to reevaluate every decision you have ever made, and ultimately spiral into an existential depression so complete that it seems like it may last longer than death.

Dear reader, if and when you get here, allow me to ease the pain by relating a memory I encountered here this evening, on this very floor

I once accepted twenty dollars for taking care of a cat that my aunt described as “mostly dead.”

Initially, I felt incredibly guilty; she was family after all and my only job seemed to be dumping half a can of cat food into a dish twice a day. The cat required no other attention, as she was blind and deaf and hated all human beings with her entire, barely beating, heart. Surly this was not worth twenty dollars of money that my aunt earned at her very strenuous, very real, adult job.

Dear reader, this guilt quickly subsided. After the second  hour of mopping up what my aunt would later call “Stinky’s skid-marks”, I was ready for a substantial raise.

My adventure in cat-sitting only got worse.

On the second evening of dumping tuna and mopping shit, my aunt’s phone rang. By this point, I had been inhaling a significant cloud of cleaning product, and was in no state to speak to a human. I let it go to voicemail.

I was alone with a mostly dead cat, it was dark, and I am a small human with virtually no arm strength. Naturally silence, followed by a man’s heavy breathing, followed the beep.

I dropped the Clorox, grabbed stinky, and took a moment to pray for a quick and painless end.

Then I bolted.

Before the final beep, the voice whispered “hello”, painfully slowly, no less than seven times. I wouldn’t know this until the following morning however, when I returned with muscular reinforcement to listen to the message and return stinky.

To my absolute surprise, the house had been locked and empty. Stinky could return to his usual butt-dragging fun times, and I could breathe again.

I took the twenty dollars quite eagerly when my aunt returned the next day.

And yes, I had already deleted the message.

Thats all from the floor for now. Check back in tomorrow for another.

 

I’m twenty years old, but with big eyes and ringlet curls, I look like a child. I am 5’2″ and have yet to crack a hundred pounds; my complimentary adjectives include “cute” “sweet” and “aw”.

But people aren’t always nice. I am constantly asked why I’m not in school, or if I’m “old enough to be working here”. Usually it’s all presumptuous nonsense, and for a long time, I could ignore it. Since leaving high school however, the wicked, aged, and wrinkled have crept inside my head.

I’ve taken to flattening my curls–to listening them sizzle in the clamp of my ten year old straightener. In an attempt to look older, I pay out the ass to cover my eyelids with a nice, thick coat of black gunk. I sculpt, I dance, I stand on my head; I read non-fiction–yeah it’s that bad.

The holidays can be weird. My family always forgets that 365 days worth of growing up have happened since last Christmas. To them I am still ironically “Big Al” or simply “Allie”.

I used to long to come home from college with stack of published stories–to finally be seen as old enough to live this very adult life.

I used to ache for the mature command of Eartha Kitt; to embody the dripping sex of Santa Baby. I could think of nothing more desirable than using the slopes of my voice to ask for–no–demand whatever I wanted.

Duplex? AND checks? This chick held nothing back. As a tiny teen, was I wrong to envy this confidence? This sense of self-ownership?

Not exactly–but my perception of sexual maturity was wildly misguided. I saw self-definition as something tangible–something to be heard in the voice. At seventeen, I didn’t know how to be a daughter–or the niece that Uncle Kevin saw once a year–while also feeling comfortable in my maturity.

For a long time, I played dress up on Christmas. I wore lipstick and dresses–said little, sighed often, and hardly smiled. As a tiny teen, I tried out my best Eartha Kitt.

But, dear reader, I’ve been through a lot this year.

This  afternoon, I found myself falling asleep at 3 pm. I woke up from my midday, Christmas snooze to Santa Baby blaring from my sister’s iPhone. I looked down at my turtleneck, and rubbed my eyes–not at all worried about smudging my makeup, as I had not put any on this morning.

I threw my curly hair up into a bun, and went to the kitchen to help my mom cook Brussels sprouts. My grandma came to take a photo of us, and I smiled.. with my teeth.

The growing up happened, 365 days since last Christmas, and I was a little closer it would seem, to my own version of Eartha Kitt’s confidence.

Though perhaps less of a voice than a feeling, I’m not entirely unhappy with were I am–with the distillation of my life.

My first drink was a Cranberita. It was a small can, the kind a twelve year old could wrap her entire fist around. I chose the floor of my closet to do it, as it felt small and safe, and I could easily stash the can in a pile of socks if things got dicey. I cracked it slowly, coughing theatrically so my parents wouldn’t hear the hiss. It was cold and sweet and not at all what I had imagined. I downed half the can without trying.

This story isn’t that of a budding alcoholic, but of a more tender tragedy, so I feel its important to tell you, dear reader, that I wasn’t alone. I saved the second half for the girl huddled between a stack of Hollister t-shirts and my old snow-pants. I handed her the holy grail and she drank in big, full gulps. when she lowered the can, I wondered aloud if we had better lay down before we tipped over. She smiled.

I met her in seventh grade. We both played soccer, or more accurately, were both on the soccer team. We were too small to be of any real use, so we sat together on the bench while our classmates ran up and down the painted field. She was beautiful and funny, and confident in a way that mystified me.

After a particularly brutal, late-summer practice, she found me sitting alone on the curb. She tossed her bag into the grass, and sat beside me. We were used to being silent together, waiting to be needed, so I found nothing odd in her wordless company. When my mom pulled up, and I slung stinky bag over aching shoulder,  she stopped me and held out an envelope. I looked around, certain that the heat had confused her. Surly she had mistaken me for someone else, someone cooler, someone who didn’t play the flute or have four library cards. But she smiled and said, “I hope I see you there.”

A birthday invitation. I was in.

We were fast friends. She liked kitkats and American Idol, I liked having a friend who invited me over, it was all very beautiful. She didn’t seem to care that my hair never did the right thing, or that I never really said what I meant. She forgave my dorkiness, and I loved her for it.

I was an anxious child, and early adolescence was no kinder to me. I had a full set of braces and an even fuller set of rejection issues. I agonized over boys with “swooshy” hair, and tweezed my eyebrows into nonexistence. Yeah, I was that girl.

Where I was timid, she was bold. She talked to boys, she wore high heels, she dyed her hair black. This girl wore liminality like skinny jeans. I tried my hand at this bravery, emulating her style in my pathetic, dorky way. I failed, of course, only finding more confusion.

Huddled together in my closet, a year into our friendship, I should have asked her why of all the shin-guard clad girls on our soccer team, she had chosen me. With a breath of liquid courage, I should have asked what I could possibly offer her. How was I, with frizzy curls and astounding averageness, worth knowing? Instead, I stashed the can in the depths of my underwear drawer, and we danced out the front door onto the street.

We padded bear foot down my cul de sac, stumbling in our glorious fake-drunkenness, and talked about boys, or life, or something else entirely. I was completely taken with the darkness of the empty street, and the cold pavement, and being together.

Hours later, under the safety of florescence, we examined the bottoms of our feet. They were black as tar, and covered with a thin layer of unidentifiable grime. Cackling, she danced in the shower, fully clothed, while I scrubbed  my feet under the faucet.

We slept hard that night; a good, long sleep.

In the morning, I kept urgently still. According to twelve year old logic, our night wasn’t over until I opened my eyes, and so I ignored my bladder until it grew to an unprecedented largeness. When I finally ran bow-legged to the bathroom to take the angriest pee of my life, I grudgingly accepted Sunday. We sought bowls of cereal, she called her mom, and within the hour she was waving goodbye with tote bag in hand.

I should have asked her then.

Four years later, we wouldn’t know each other. We would be at different schools, in different lives, with different, beautiful friends. I can never seem to forget her, not that I’ve tried very hard. She chose me when I was frizzy-haired and gap-toothed, and I think I’ll always love her for that.

Though I would love to leave this title without explanation, I will do my absolute best in attempting to explain how and why I ended up standing over Mark Twain’s grave, doing shots of a nutritional supplement.

Did you know that Mark Twain wasn’t even his given name? I feel like everybody knew but me. This feels very much like when I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a child and was distraught that no one had told me how attractive Brad Pitt was. I had missed out on so many of his prime years.

But anyway, his name was Samuel Clemens; I almost prefer that to Mark Twain. It sounds very scholarly, like a philosophy professor, but a cool one, not the stuffy old one with a grey beard. God, I digress.

So before reaching stardom, Sammy fell madly in love with Elmira, New York native, Olivia Langdon. They later married and had several babies etc etc.

Though the family moved around the North East constantly, when Olivia died in 1904, and Sammy in 1910, they were both brought back to Elmira to be buried.

Skip forward a hundred years, and a nineteen year old Allison (that’s me) moved to Elmira in an attempt to find herself.

One thing that is very important to know about Elmira is that it is terribly boring. There’s a small private college, two high schools, a Wegmans, and Mark Twain’s grave. Though Wegmans is it’s number one money maker, Sammy’s grave is a very close second.

Yes, Elmira, New York is deemed a tourist destination purely because that is where the decaying body of a famous writer is buried. Seems a little twisted, but hey.

Elmira is not modest, but boasts very obviously that it holds exclusive ownership of Sammy’s bones. Every golf course, every corner store, every bakery is named after Mark Twain. I could not buy a pack of gum without also being encouraged to buy a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or a magnet of his head stone. I wish I was kidding.

As a person who enjoys writing, I was almost pleased to see the level of fame he had achieved in this small town. I mean it could definitely be worse; Elmira could be known as “The Town Where Kim Kardashian Sneezed” or some such nonsense. But it’s not, it’s all about celebrating the life and death of a creative, intelligent man, which is pretty cool. So for this reason, I’ll try not to be too hard on good old Elmira.

So back to nineteen year old Allison.

I lived in Elmira for three months without visiting his grave. I felt like I had heard so much about it, that to visit it would be giving in to Elmira’s somewhat twisted marketing scheme.

It became like a joke; my friends would ask me what I was doing that evening, and I would say, “Oh, just hanging out with Mark, the usual.”

I thought about him often; though I was never a huge fan, he became very important to me. As a writer and a citizen of Elmira, I felt like it meant something that I was finding myself in the town where he fell in love. As sappy as I am, I felt like it was meant to be. But still, I could not bring myself to visit his grave. No way would it live up to my expectations, it was just a headstone, just a patch of grass.

When my last night in Elmira came, I could not sleep. I couldn’t help but think that I had wasted my time there, that I was no closer to finding myself than I had been when I got there. I was angry and upset and completely lost.

I sat up and took to Google. I had, of course, just one name on my mind.

Mark Twain

After reading through a list of his greatest achievements and laundry list of awards, I came across an incredibly honest biography. In it, it explained that Sammy was extremely cynical, a pessimist, and had “a deep-down feeling that human existence is a cosmic joke perpetrated by a chuckling God”*

I had never felt more spiritually connected to someone in my entire life.

The biography went on to say, “Another cause of his angst, perhaps, was the unconscious anger at himself for not giving undivided attention to his deepest creative instincts”*

ANGST IS MY MIDDLE NAME. REPRESSED CREATIVITY?! ME AF!

What I had been struggling with for three months was my unending anger and fear that I had royally screwed up my life, wasted any and all potential that I might have had, and completely lost my mind. Samuel Clemens was my guy, and I had to see him, right then.

I grabbed my best friend, who had seen me struggle for the past three months, an Ensure (a nutritional supplement for people whose bodies need nutrients but who can’t stomach food), and sprinted out the door into the rain.

We ran to my car, which was parked down the block, and I realized with horror that I had grabbed my housemate’s shoes. They were at least 4 sizes too big, but as my feet flopped around, my pajama pants sopping wet with rain, and eyes determined on seeing Sammy’s final resting place, I never felt more alive.

I followed the many signs all proclaiming, “THIS WAY TO THE DEAD GUY!” and we made our way to Woodlawn Cemetery. We drove through the gate and into pitch blackness, and I was terrified.

I wish I could tell you that I triumphantly ran through the cemetery, but I was shaking, had to pee, and could not stop nervous-giggling. Every shadow made me jump, every headstone seemed to shiver.

Every few feet was a sign in the shape of an arrow, staked into the ground, saying, “Mark Twain this way”. I couldn’t help but feel extremely sad for the other thousand people buried there, without a sign and an arrow, without acknowledgement for their contributions to Elmira, and to the lives of the people they loved.

Within minutes, we reached the final sign. We held hands as we stepped into the grass and towards the statue and headstone, both with his given name.

I was finally there. Before me was the place that I had spent the last three months imagining. We were completely alone; just me, my best friend, and Mark Twain. It was so quiet there, so dark; we were far enough from the road that the noise from the cars couldn’t reach us. We sat down beside Samuel and Olivia Clemens, and cried.

The statue read, “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday, and the reunion of tomorrow.”

I cracked open the Ensure, took a gulp, and passed it to my best friend who did the same. She then filled up the cap half full, and poured the smallest amount in front of Samuel Clemens’ grave. We each placed a hand on the headstone and gave a heartfelt thank you. He had been there for us during the hardest time in our lives, after all.

We sat there for a while in silence, looking at the stars, and feeling so grateful for each other, and for our shared experiences. When the birds started singing hours later, we got up and went home for the last time.

Who knew that a dead writer could have such a profound impact on the lives of two teenage girls, a hundred years later, in Elmira, New York.

 

 

*The Biography: https://www.biography.com/people/mark-twain-9512564

 

There are two things I love more than almost anything else; androgyny and live music. Given this fun fact, what follows will be of no surprise to you, my dear reader. I love The 1975.

You may ask yourself, “What a cool band, have you always been this daringly trendy?”

To which my answer is, no. I was, and continue to be, a giant dork.

I realized last spring that my music taste was an utter disgrace, not only to myself, but to whoever regularly rode in my car. Putting my phone on shuffle was Russian Roulette, but worse. Instead of getting shot, you got 45 minutes of uninterrupted One Direction mixed with the soundtrack to Miss Saigon; I had some major self improvement to do. It was time to discover my style, my taste, my ish, if you will.

I took to Spotify.

A brief fling with 90’s R&B sent me down an interesting road; let me tell you, nothing makes you feel sexually available like Genuine’s “Pony”. I found a deep appreciation for the style, and truly enjoy a lot of R&B, but I still ached for a tragic leading man to fill my angsty, teenage heart.

I took to Spotify again to find a band to fill this void, and something amazing happened; I found Sex.

The 1975’s hit “Sex” was my Steven Hawking moment.

I had found a band that I loved and a style that I connected to; the perfect mix of bops and songs to sob in the car to. It wasn’t until a few months later that I saw a picture of the band, and wouldn’t you know it, the leading man, Matty Healy, is beautiful enough to break your damn heart.

He’s described as having “a massive ego, and extremely low self-worth.” Confidence, anguished self-doubt, morbid introspection and ceaseless self-laceration; ditto arrogance, urgency, passion and panic, he’s got it all. This man, I’m telling ya. Lord help me.

But on the real, the music he writes is deeply moving and witty, intelligent and arrogant, accessible and pretentious; he is a man of dialectics, and of my heart.

Naturally, when the opportunity came to see them a few weeks ago, I was all but peeing myself with excitement. What I didn’t know, was that night would hold so much more than a concert for me.

You know those nights of absolute bliss; the ones that make you, if only for a moment, abandon any illusion of control over the future? The ones that are burned into you’re memory, that you save only for yourself? Those moments hold you’re entire being; the sadness, the joy, all of it.

Yeah, this night was one of those.

Tearing down the highway on the way to the concert, listening to “Somebody Else” and half yelling-half sobbing the lyrics,  I felt invincible. With my best friend in the seat next to me and no one for miles, we pulled over to do cartwheels in the grass, just because we could. The freedom and possibilities of our lives felt limitless. I felt happier than I had in what felt like years, and the pressure of our shared struggles fell away; we just WERE.

It felt like the entire universe was conspiring for us, just for us.

We pulled into the only parking garage near the venue, and realized between the two of us we only had $5. Of course, parking was $10. I turned to the attendant, told her about our magical drive, about the cartwheels and the bliss, and asked if she would take $5 instead. She smiled, nodded and waved us through. God bless her.

We made it to the venue just in time to wait in the world’s longest line, containing the world’s largest population of girls between the ages of 16-25 in chokers and crop tops.

I was wearing a velvet dress, sneakers, and had drove-with-the-windows-down hair. I looked absolutely nuts, but we were still on cloud 9.

Nothing could touch us. Not the cops trying to arrest us for selling our extra tickets (bad idea), not the handsy security guards, not the man who couldn’t get our tickets to scan, not even the 6’5″ girl who wedged herself between me and the stage.

I am 5’2″, could barley see, was sweating profusely and had spent my last $5; but when the band came out, none of it mattered.

I couldn’t tell you what happened during their hour and a half set; I have hardly any memory of it. I didn’t bother to take pictures, or  file each song into my permanent memory; I was just so incandescently happy to bare witness to that night.

I do however, remember a very nice boy picking me up so I could catch a glimpse of Matty. I felt so guilty, as that poor soul picked me right up by the profusely sweating armpits (with excellent biceps i might add). I will never forget floating over the sea of people, all singing along to my favorite song, and for that I am eternally indebted to you, Kind-Bicep Guy.

Those are the moments you never get back, that you have to choose to live fully.

Every other worry waited that night.

I locked eyes with Mr. Healy no less than 3 times, each time I felt like I was going to implode, but I just smiled and knew I shouldn’t take my bra off and chuck it, though I wanted to.

I didn’t think about how I looked, or if I had eaten too much or not enough that day. I didn’t think about if my makeup was okay or if my hair was frizzy; I didn’t care. My favorite band was right there, and I was listening.

After the encore, and the crippling despair at the knowledge that the show was over, we were in desperate need of hydration. The universe gifted us again, as a very nice bald man gave us free bottles of water. I thanked him, accidentally called him a goddess (at which he was only mildly offended) and we left.

As we got back to the car, it was all starting to feel like a memory, and that scared me. I looked over at my best friend in the seat beside me, put The 1975 on, chugged some more water, and knew that this HAD to be more than a story to tell.

If I continued to choose what made me happy, if I relinquished control over the future, if I listened to cool bands and did cartwheels in dresses and got picked up by strangers and fell in love with someone I didn’t even know, but whose music meant something to me-I could be this happy all the time.

That night could be more than a memory, it could be my life.

And so, love what you love, take risks, dance, laugh, do cartwheels, I don’t know, man. I think the moral here is to just take life as it comes, and to not get in your own way.

Life is not meant to be a collection of memories, it is meant to be LIVED.

 

 

 

 

The typical college student doesn’t remember most of their freshman year. This of course, held true for me, but not because I was blackout drunk-no no-because I repressed every second of that painfully awkward catastrophe.

But because I love you, dear reader, I have dug into the depths of my subconscious repression to compile this list, just for you.

A list of things I did my freshman year that I’m not proud of:

Watching 6 movies in a row with my suite mate including the SpongeBob SquarePants movie, all 3 Cheetah Girls, and Kangaroo Jack.

Eating cheez-it’s for dinner several nights a week for 3 months.

Yelling at my roommate for making too much noise with an empty can of Monster energy drink. More than once.

Spending my last $70 on an uneven trim and bad highlights.

Wearing a New York Nets hat 5 days a week because it made me sad to look at my hair.

Re-watching the entirety of Friday Night Lights in a week.

Crying because Tim Riggins isn’t real.

Financial accounting.

Thinking my phone was in a washing machine so I unplugged it, dropped my sopping wet bedding onto the ground, spilled soap everywhere, rummaged through it, and caused a slight flood. (phone was not there, in case you were wondering)

Not breaking up with my ex boyfriend sooner.

Standing in line for an hour to sign up for the gym, but never going because I was afraid of equipment and men with large muscles and being in public for more than 10 minutes and the gym.

Having a dream that I ate my shower flip-flops that disturbed me so deeply I had to throw them out and buy a new pair.

Having a job where I watched women’s field hockey for 4 hours in the pouring rain and snow while wearing an XL bright orange polo and directing people to the bathroom.

Letting my suite mate buy a $5 “tiger poster” knowing full well that it was just a 4’6″ photo of a tiger, but not having the heart to tell her.

Not giving my very attractive and deeply intelligent philosophy professor my number.

Making it blatantly obvious that I was in love with my moderately young, but very married philosophy professor.

Not making it clear enough that I absolutely adored my roommate.

Not studying for months and then studying for 96 hours straight while listening to instrumental Christmas carols in an attempt to stay festive.

Watching family feud every night, without fail.

Watching the light fade from Steve Harvey’s eyes.

Becoming invested in The Bachelor almost completely unironically.

Getting dumped, via text, the day before my birthday, during finals week.

Losing my appetite.

Losing myself.

Transferring schools.

Leaving the greatest roommate that has, and will ever live.

Not appreciating these moments until making this list.

Oh, and writing “Damn Daniel” on the outside of our door and leaving it there for over a month. Now that is just unforgivable.

There are few things that stir my heart like Harry Styles.

Before you judge, gimme a sec to explain. Through thick and thin, Mr. Styles has been consistently gorgeous, and endlessly, painfully cool. Quite honestly, I don’t know if I’d rather marry him or BE him. Like damn, son that hair. I digress.

There is one video in particular that I return to when times are tough. It’s a poorly filmed, close up of Harry during a performance of One Direction’s cover of Teenage Dirt-bag. In this video, he goes absolutely nuts, flails around, and dumps water on the audience, all the while maintaining his ultimate coolness. How. Just how.

This got me thinking about the way I present myself to others. I have always taken great pains in acting like I have it all together. My outfits always match without being the dreaded “matchy-matchy”, my hair is always a tasteful mess, the list goes on.

But what if, just for a day, I abandoned this perfect balance and channeled my inner Harry; my inner dirt-bag, if you will. Would I be as carefree as Mr. Styles? Would I, too, be a heartthrob? These aren’t the things someone with a questionable mental history should be asking, but God damn it if I wasn’t going to find out.

I have run the tests, I have compiled the data, and what I found was slightly sad, but ultimately very rewarding.

Basically everybody is a mess. Everybody. I firmly believe that Harry Styles is a hologram, an angel, or a robot created by Jesus himself, because he truly seems to be the only exception.

By getting some reflective distance from relentlessly trying to look effortless, I realized that everyone around me was doing the same. People spend hundreds of dollars dying their hair, hours applying makeup each morning, and days in dressing rooms looking for the most flattering pair of jeans. My God people, what are we doing?

I can’t even judge, because I do the same thing; it feels good. It nice to feel confident, and easy to get lost in the mirror. I couldn’t help but wallow in self pity a while when I realized the extent of the time I’d lost to this endless need to seem cool.

Harry had truly cracked the code. He had flailed around, he had acted a fool, and I had loved it. I admired him at his craziest, least composed moments. Why wouldn’t this hold true for me?

And so kiddos, here’s the thesis; flail, go nuts, throw water, toss your hair around. At those moments when you feel least secure, think of Harry. Would Harry agonize over the shape of his eyebrows, or would he be too busy being Harry God Damn Styles?

Now you too can be a heartthrob adored by millions of girls, just like me! Oh joy! Now, pardon me while I go cry to the lyrics of “Sign Of The Times” and clutch my 2013 One Direction calendar.

Being cool is far too exhausting.

The video that changed my life. (watch until the end for full enlightenment)

 

It may come as no surprise to you, my dearest reader, that I am a hypochondriac.

In the past year I have diagnosed myself with approximately 47 types of cancer, Ebola, and the Swine Flu. So yeah, Web MD and I go way back.

Please keep this in mind as you read the following tale of a Friday night I remember, quite fondly, as the night I finally lost it.

After a long day of slacking off, I was taking a shower in our disgusting, communal dorm bathroom, and happened to also be chewing gum. As I was pumping conditioner into my hand, I pushed too hard and the conditioner projectile-squirted toward my face.

At this exact moment, my mouth was mid-chew and God, wouldn’t you know it, the conditioner shot right into my mouth and directly down my throat. I stood there for a moment in awe at the depth of my stupidity. As I let this fully sink in (and slide down my throat) I began to panic.

I proceeded to text my roommate, from the shower, with the water still running, to ask her if conditioner was poisonous. To this she said, “Once I drank some dish soap and I was fine.” Comforting.

So I took to google.

Is Conditioner Poisonous? 

My phone was now soaking wet.

Reliable old Web MD, in its infinite wisdom, was telling me to call poison control “without delay”.

After several anxiety attacks, shuffling back to my room in a towel, and some dry heaving, I decided on a course of action.

I have no idea why I thought poison control would give a single care that I had swallowed 2 pumps of conditioner, but there I was, dialing them up.

A women answered after two rings, listened to my insanity, and said, in a tone of utter disgust, “well I don’t know how you did that, but you’ll probably puke. Other than that you’ll be fine.”

I did not want to puke, I had spent far too much money on food that day to waste it. (Let us save the discussion of inflated college, meal plan prices for another day, as I will get far too heated).

So, naturally I asked the lady “are you sure?”

She did not like this. She then described to me, in detail, the number of years experience she’d had with poison control (twenty) and how I was ungrateful for her vast depth of knowledge (college kids these days, man).

Jokes on her though, I never vomited. I held in my instant mashed potatoes, half an apple and two pumps of “Touchable Softness” conditioner with the utmost dignity.

My insides are smooth and silky to this day, and I am now a strong advocate for searching for accredited, medical journals.

Cite your sources, kiddos.

And please, I beg of you, don’t chew gum in the shower.