Off of the meds and into some beds.

I recently had a startling revelation implanted in me by a general practitioner regarding the inner workings of my psyche, for they are qualified to make such judgments, as you must know. I learned from my kind, albeit dutiful drug-doling doc that I needed a daily pill to counteract the recent "freakouts" I'd been having, brought on by a propensity of being consumed with anxiety. Prescription drug addictions are all the rage these days and I figured I may as well hop on the happy train and suck down some good old-fashioned mood stabilization. Yum. I'll take 30 blues and 15 whites. Let's do this!

Make. Me. Mentally sound. Please and thank you, see you in a month.

I left the doctor's office and popped my first blue as soon as I got home, letting the cycle begin and the anxiety end. The whites were backups in case of emergency, but I decided I'd reserve those as "party pills" since the dailies should be enough to keep my crazy brain in check.

"You read the information pamphlets that came with the pills, right?" Some Girl asked me on the third day of drug induction.

"Yeah..." I hadn't.

"Well, I did and I think you might want to again," I didn't.

"Blargh. Give me those," I took the pamphlets out of her hand and began the tedious act of leafing through the literature.

It's just a bunch of side-effects I'm not going to get, I thought (if you're familiar with many of the things I say or think, you should know that this is a typical instance in which the truth happens to be the exact opposite of my assumption).

As I perused the dishearteningly long list of things I preferred not to - and hardly assumed would - happen after prolonged use of the controlled substances, I finally reached the last two potential side-effects on the page. Now, for all the nutrition label readers in the world, it is well known amongst our kind that the FIRST ingredient is the most concentrated in the food in question and the LAST ingredient is, of course, the LEAST concentrated. Logic would seem to dictate this fundamental truth, but due to reasons I will soon reveal, this rule does not in any fucking way apply to the likelihood of the TERRIBLE SHIT that can possess your very body and soul as it is ordinally displayed on an Rx's "Consequence Pamphlet".

Let's say there were, oh, twenty-two shitty potential side-effects for my medicated bars; scanning, my eyes widened and quickly formed into a troubled squint at the following site:
Shitty Fucking Side-Effect #21: CHANGE or (#22:) LACK of sexual interest.

To the untrained mind, the two may seem as one listed effect, considering the everpresent "or" between "change" and "lack". However, a change in sexual interest is markedly different from a complete and utter lack. As far as I knew, were I to believe the side-effect hype, my sexual desires could completely alter and I would soon no longer find the opposite sex attractive. In fact, "change" is used so ambiguously in context that, for all I knew, they wanted me to think I may eventually only get a hard-on at the sight of a ring-tailed lemur anally impaled atop a unicorn's horn. Thus, #21 had even less credibility than a normal side-effect.

This brings us, inevitably, to Shitty Fucking Side-Effect #22 (SFSE-22). If you've ever seen the 1987 masterpiece "Predator", you may recall sage-like words from the character Blain, played by the future governor of Minnesota, Jesse "The Body" Ventura: "Bunch of slack-jawed faggots around here. This stuff will make you a god damned sexual Tyrannosaurus, just like me." Indeed, much like Blain, I would - without question - consider myself a sexual Tyrannosaurus. This is not because I believe I am in any way one of David Icke's hypothesized "reptillian humanoids", but simply because my sexual drive is that of a teenage nerdboy locked deep inside the awkwardly shaped body of a twenty-six-year-old (mini)man. Even dinosaurs - the most badass fucking earth-giants to roam the blue planet - became extinct; that includes the Tyrant King.

Day 11 of drug induction (still nom nomming on the blue pills):

"I want you to finish," Some girl whispered in my ear.

It's been a while I thought, but this shouldn't be so...difficult.

"I'm trying."

"I know," did she really know?

It took longer than normal, and it's usually quite long (perhaps annoyingly so), but I did eventually finish. Little fanfare ensued. We slept.

What was that all about, I asked myself the next morning. But I knew. I had known that night. SFSE-22 was in full effect despite my unwillingness to assert it's likelihood. My sexual interests didn't change (SFSE-21), but instead shape-shifted from T-Rex to lack of sex. I wanted the sexual motivation, but it just up and disappeared from my loins like S.S. Dick from the Hermuda Triangle. I drove home dejected, not only from my new found inability, but from my foolish confidence in the logic of side-effect ordinance. The worst had come true. I would have rather been able to make the sex happen SFSE-21 style with a horny unicorn (no pun intended) than lose my drive entirely.

"Blast!" I spoke archaic curses in my car by myself as I traversed the rode of realization and pulled into the driveway, "Balderdash!" These outbursts were indicative of other problems I doubt not, but only one really mattered (I am of course referring to the whole "dick not quite working thing").

I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor on pill 18 - I so badly wanted my old horny self back that I had begun to think of time in terms of remaining meds rather than days - and I couldn't wait to tell him to get me off them at all costs so I could fuck again. Give me my dick back, I so desperately wanted to shout in his face.

"Hi, I'm calling about your next appointment." I liked this secretary.

"Yeah?"

"The doctor won't be in that day so we need to reschedule." Fucking bitch face! "How's Tuesday sound?" That was five more days of a worthless winrar. Unacceptable.

"No problem. See you then!" This was going to be a problem. How could I live ONE more day like this, let alone an extra fucking five? Even masturbation was impossible and I'm AWESOME at masturbating! "Curses."

Tuesday, six (or was it five) blues left: time to see the doc. Finally.

"Hi, can I help you?"

"I have a 9:30 appointment."

"It was actually a 9:20 apointment, but it's fine. Do you have a copay?" Wow, passive agressive much? And as if you don't know I have a fucking copay.

"Yeah..."I handed her the $25 dollars.

I waited.

"Ryan?" I followed the blonde toward the back of the office.

"Hi Ryan"

"Hey doc"

"How do you feel about the meds?"

"GET. ME. OFF OF THEM."

"What's the problem?"

Whats the--really? "My fucking dick doesn't work anymore!"

"Well, that happens with these meds...I could actually prescribe one or two drugs that won't affect your sexual desires if you'd like..." What. The. Fuck? Really? You couldn't have mentioned that before? My fucking cock's broke!

"No thanks doc. I think I'll take my chances without. I'd really just like to get off the damn blues and recapture my virility. You think I could do that?" He fucking better.

"I don't see why not." Goddamn right.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And this is where I am now friends. Don't let the title mislead you. I don't really plan on jumping from partner to partner, whether or not I'm technically "on the rebound" and have my prowess near full power. Perhaps ironically, I don't want to sleep with anyone at this point and have nearly sworn off the fairer sex out of simple apprehension of their often ruthless actions. What matters is that I have the power back from the Rx thieves; both the well-being of my mind and the well-being of the organ I use to do most of my thinking are once again free from from the meds' grimy mitts. I forgot what it was to feel like myself after such a short time and am grateful to have back in my possession what matters most. In retrospect, given the choice between SFSE-21 and SFSE-22, I'd rather get the biggest boner of my life over rabid cybernetic rodents than completlely lose the capacity to initiate penile bloodflow. If one were looking for a moral to this story, that's the best I can do. If that doesn't inspire you to celebrate life, nothing else will.

Ever.