“You have to give Dave a
chance. He’s such a good guy.” It was true, because his name was Dave.
Some of my favorite
prescription medications come with warnings against operating heavy machinery.
I, of course, calmly comply with such reasonable cautions. The heaviest
machinery I operate these days is my electric toothbrush. Until today anyway. Today did not begin well. I
forgot to recharge it and it was inoperable. I swear, that’s never happened to
me before. So here’s the conversation I had with myself.
Me: I think this says more
about the dangers of prescription drug side effects than it does about how I may
be falling behind the curve of evolving technology.
WISIMH: Or an even less likely possibility: I’m
losing my mind.
Me: Nobody is losing anybody’s mind. I did plug
in the damn charger dock, I just forgot to put the damn toothbrush in after I
finished brushing my damn teeth.
WISIMH: As I stand here
moving my hand all around brushing my teeth I have realized that since heavy
machinery is neither sonic nor rechargeable, it is arguably easier to operate steam
shovels than my toothbrush. Counterintuitively, both can be exhausting to operate manually.
Me: (rather smugly)
Therefore, as seriousness of side-effects go, it’s much more likely that
forgetting how to operate light machinery can result in greater harm than
operating heavy machinery on drugs.
Me: How cool is it that my inner voice can
include hyperlinks inside my head?
WISIMH : But surely, crashing
an airplane with hundreds of passengers causes more harm than having to
manually brush one’s teeth?
Me: Have we met? Cannot I
measure the percent of a glass half empty to NASA human flight
tolerances? Here’s a scenario off the top of my head. Because I’ve had to spend
so long manually brushing my teeth, my whole right arm is sore and weak but I haven't noticed that yet. My right arm is so weak that when I get out to the kitchen and boil water for my
coffee I lose my grip accidentally and when I pick up the copper pot filled
with boiling water, my grip fails and it drops on the floor…
WISMH: You will find any excuse to throw a pity
party about your espresso machine being in the shop and how you're losing the will to live without your morning latte.
Me: Anyway,
I drop the pot of boiling water and scald myself and the pot lands on my toes. Then, horribly, I stumble and knock the coffee cup onto the floor where it shatters
into deadly shrapnel dipped in coffee grounds, embedding right into the scalded part of
my legs and my burned feet. I stagger up somewhat disoriented, bleeding profusely thanks to the
doctor-approved ratio of prescription rat poison in my blood. Being stoic,
stalwart and stubborn, and plus suffering typical side effects of my medication that
diminishes my judgment before caffeine intake, I make a poor decision. Instead of calling an ambulance
I stagger to the car and speed to the ER.
Surely, you can see where this is going. Before I get to the hospital I
become disoriented from unbearable pain and weak from loss of blood. I loose
control and crash into a school bus full of nuns and special educational orphans singing songs about going to see Shamu. Then, I then perform a
flawless unconscious PIT maneuver and tip the now screaming yellow bus off the
bridge overpass and where it literally splashes onto a fire truck on the way to a small brush fire that
will eventually spread to destroy 700 acres and 250 homes that the fire truck
could have prevented if it's tires weren't all flattened by squished nuns and orphans and school bus engine parts. (Mercifully, I was not conscious to witness this, but I
am doomed to spend the rest of my life with this burden on my heart and on my shriveled
scarred legs. In a wheelchair. Alone. But this isn't about me.)
WISIMH: You should stop
brushing now.
Me: (Putting down the
toothbrush and carefully proceeding to the kitchen) I’m not advocating here
that we have to include prescription warnings about knowing side effects before
operating light machinery, e.g. rechargeable sonic toothbrushes.
WISIMH: Good. Because
everybody knows the heavy machine warning is code for Ima lay (sic) down ‘n
take ‘n nap.
Me: Exactly! And we don’t want to frighten Nana any more
with school bus and fire truck crash scenarios proximately caused by operating sonic toothbrushes on drugs.
Warnings about suicidal thoughts and attempts are scary enough already. I'm guessing some attempts succeed too.
WISIMH: So, er, what are you advocating here?
Me: You have to give your toothbrush a chance to recharge. It’s such a good
guy...
WISIMH: ... And it's true, because your toothbrush is rechargeable.
Watch out with that copper pot of boiling
water!
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