I woke up bright and early Saturday morning. I was still groggy from my snooty wine and lobster from the night before. I briefly wondered why I was up. Oh yeah, a mini road trip to St Petersburg. Sweet, I love a good trip. Especially when I am not driving.
I danced out of bed and showered off the essence of overpriced food. Then I hopped in my car to zip over to S' house because she was going to drive from there. On the way I dropped into a CVS pharmacy. My slight cough had still not gone away, so my doctor had called in a prescription for me. On top of the expected bottle antibiotics, there was also a small red bottle full of liquid. I peered at the label. It seemed to be composed of cough syrup and hydrocodone. Little did I know that it was actually brewed up in the devils own kitchen.
Out in my car I took a little swig from it and then headed on over to S's apartment. By time I loaded into her car and was heading over to pick up Matt, I started to notice I was feeling fine. Mighty fine in fact. I felt every muscle in my body relax and a happy stupid grin appeared on my face. Boy, life was great. That was some amazing cough syrup. S roused Matt from his house by unceremoniously banging on his window until he groggily joined the world of the awake. Then we headed on our way.
We sped on down to St Petersburg. After a little confusion about parking we finally found a spot a couple blocks away from where we were meeting up with some other folks. St. Pete seems to be composed entirely out of two-hour parking spaces. As we were parking I pulled out the bottle and peered at it again. DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL! A sticker on the side loudly proclaimed. I decided it was probably more of a suggestion. I took another small nip out of it. S looked at the bottle sharply and said "Are we going to have to take that away from you?". I sheepishly put the bottle aside.
It was warm out, but not hot. You would gain a sweat form sitting in the sun, however in the shade it was a balmy comfortable level. We walked several blocks to find the people we were meeting. It was located at a little caf‚ with outdoor seating. I was parched from our short walk, and I immediately ordered two pints. One for my thirst and one to enjoy.
I am not even going to get into the folks we met. You know who you are. It would take more than my little blog to cover it. Never before have I met such gun-toting, bigoted antisocial elitist who were also intelligent, charismatic and entirely entertaining to listen to. Despite the series of unfortunate events that was about to happen internally, I had myself a fine time.
Somewhere in the middle of my third beer I felt a little something down below. I figure it was from drinking beer so early on an empty stomach, so I ordered a little cheese and fruit platter to snack on and settle things down. I still felt a little funny. Then I thought that perhaps I was dehydrating myself from drinking a beer in the sun while sweating. So I got a glass of water. All that did was made me have to pee. So I got up and went looking for the bathroom.
I went into the stall and stood over the toilet, weaving ever so slightly. Suddenly it was as if Moses had entered the stall with me, pointed his staff at my gut and cried out 'Arise!' because suddenly everything I had consumed that morning came pouring out of me and into the waiting toilet. This is a new low for me, I do not think I have ever vomited in a public restroom before. That is something that has always been left to the shameful privacy of my own toilet or the natural setting behind a tree. I became horrified that someone else might walk into he bathroom and hear the distinct sounds of my gastric harmony. Luckily no one did. I briefly thought to myself: So, that's why it said 'Do not take with alcohol'.
Once I finished, I found myself in another dilemma. The toilet was not flushing. It was one of those infrared sensor toilet that is supposed to flush when it sense motion. There was no manual handle on it. I tried waving my hand in front of it. Nothing. I pulled a paper towel form the dispenser and waved it at it. No reaction. Then, absurdly, I bent over and waved my ass in front of it, thinking it was perhaps fine-tuned to ass motions. No such lucky. Finally I simply crept out, leaving my mess for the next poor sucker to wander by.
A little white and shaken, I went and sat back down at the table. It would have been an unnecessary social Faux Pas for me to announce to everyone that I had just vomited. So I settled down and listened to the game of ego ping-pong that was taking place at the table and zoned out a little bit.
So they talked and talked and talked. Good lord could they talk. I think it was something like six or seven hours over the course of three restaurants. I was annoyed because St. Pete has a fun little nightlife district, but I had gone and soured my stomach with devils brew and no longer was in the mood to drink. I glumly chewed on some tums and listened to the prattle.
At one point Klaus brought up the concept of a computer that functioned off a complex mathematical theorem derived from the infinite space located between numbers that pointed to the fact that everything in the future was predetermined and thus could be predicted. I found a bit of irony in this because if people are too stupid to follow simple instructions on the side of a medicine bottle, why on earth are they going to listen to the dictations of such a machine.
The final place we stopped at was a little Thai restaurant where I helped myself to a small platter of calamari. There are some real characters that wander around St. Pete. From the innumerable twisted and crust bums that hobbled by to the seemingly large hippie populations. I saw more Hippies in St. Pete than I have ever seen in downtown Orlando. Either hemp wearing earth girls saving the environment with their trust funds to the dirty hippie band badly playing some tune in front of an open guitar case displaying a few forlorn dollars.
Finally it was getting a little late. The talkers seemed to be slowing down ever so slightly. As for me, my stomach was finally settled, but my eyelids were starting to droop. I got up to walk around once or twice so I would not snooze off at the time. Eventually it was time to go, and we received our bills.
Klaus bent forward and deftly plucked out the quarters from his pile of change. "Quarters," he muttered "Are worth their weight in gold."
It was the wisest thing I had heard all night.
2026 Update
Dialing the time machine back 20 years to watch Ed wash down narcotic cough syrup with beer and then battle an unflushable toilet.
God, what a museum piece. In 2006, the doctor phoned in a narcotic cough syrup like it was a pizza, and Ed treated the label as a garnish. Today that red bottle would require a small blood sacrifice, a prior authorization, and a creepy app that tracks your coughing in real time. And St. Pete’s two-hour parking spaces have mostly been replaced by metered phone apps that somehow still only work half the time—though the sensor toilets have been upgraded to models that still refuse to flush after you’ve redecorated them. Paper towels? Gone, replaced by hand dryers that sense your shame and blow it back into your face. As for those gun-toting, bigoted intellectuals at the table: in 2026 they’d all be running podcasts and screaming at each other in a comments section. But the real stinger is Klaus and his quarters. In 2026, quarters are not worth their weight in gold; they’re worth the weight of a vending machine that only takes cards and then asks if you want to subscribe to premium snacks.
“2006 Ed, when you read “DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL” and decided it was probably more of a suggestion, did you also assume the sensor toilet was fine-tuned to ass motions? And did you ever go back to that bathroom to apologize to the next poor sucker?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you’ve got me pegged pretty good. Yeah, I treated that sticker like a mild suggestion, and then I treated that toilet like some kind of magic ass-sensing contraption. I figured, heck, it’s got no handle, must be designed for the hips, so why not give it my best wiggle? It didn’t work. I’m not proud. As for going back to apologize to the next poor sucker, I can’t say I did. That would require going back into that bathroom and facing the crime scene, and I ain’t that brave. I can only hope whoever found it understood it was a medical mystery, not a deliberate gift. That cough syrup was some devil’s brew, I tell you. Never again. Probably. Well, maybe not never, but at least I’ll read the label twice. Or once. We’ll see.
