Mumbo Jumbo

Went out with a friend today.  The day started out nice, visiting one of the new Halloween stores in town.  My feet have been hurting a lot, as of late, with the cooler weather, but the warm temperatures today proved worthwhile for this outing.

We trekked around looking at this and that, before moving on to our next destination where we did some grocery shopping.  Her for her household, me for mine.  Then we had a quick lunch right there.

In an effort to eat up as much time before going to pick up her boyfriend from work, we visited a couple more destinations, looking for Halloween stuff that she could incorporate into a costume.  She's very creative and sometimes likes to bounce ideas off of me.  I don't mind as I like the creative aspect without any of the follow-up of having to do the work.  It's like taking pride in the finished product without having any of the headaches or callouses of putting the piece together.

As well as I was feeling in the beginning of our adventure, the time on my feet was beginning to take it's toll on me.  I eventually found myself limping a little, as my feet began to swell.  My midsection was beginning to hurt some, as I'd had surgery a couple of weeks ago and I'm still having some issues with that healing process.  Most annoyingly, I began to get a headache.

I tend to get a lot of headaches, come autumn, and they only grow more frequent and intense as the winter months engulf us.  This particular headache I could feel mustering behind my eyeball.  These ones tend to get real bad, real quick.  But I didn't want to say anything, because my friend was having a good time and I didn't wish to spoil her outing.  I never mentioned anything until we began our journey homeward.

"I would offer you something, if I had anything." she said, to which I told her it was okay.  I explained that I had the same Ibuprofen that she had in her trunk, a purchase she'd made earlier in the day.  "I'll simply take four or five of them, when I get home.... With a shot of bourbon!"

She was shocked, immediately warning me off of such a terrible action, citing that booze and medication should never be mixed.  "Bah!" I said, "That's just nonsense."

She went on to tell me that I should never mix alcohol with medication, to which I gave her my explanation and to tell the truth, while I was just blowing smoke out my ass, the logic is present and I think I may actually believe my own hype...

"That's just big pharmaceutical who warns against mixing medication with alcohol.  You never see alcohol companies warning 'Don't drink this with pain meds'."   I paused for a moment, thinking about the words that just spilled from my mouth and yeah...  No alcohol companies say that.  So I have to believe that it's like the marijuana thing, where the booze companies launched negative campaigns to render cannabis as an illicit "drug", so too are big pharmaceutical companies making similar claims against alcohol, exemplifying that it can't fix any of the problems that medication can. (Which makes a person curious as to why they speak against the positives of marijuana.)

"Besides," I added, "The alcohol just gives it that extra -- Ba-BAAMM!!  The Ibuprofen works fine, but the bourbon acts as a turbo boost!  Thrusts it into your system so much quicker."

Big pharmaceutical claims that medication should not be mixed with alcohol, but they make the same claim that shit should be taken with food and despite not following those instructions, I've never been affected negatively in that way, either.  It's a lot of hooey.  Verbal mumbo jumbo meant to put fear into people so they have to rely more heavily on their meds.  Unless you're a raging alcoholic, then I say there's no harm in pouring yourself a nice stiff drink to chase down the pain meds.  It'll fix whatever ails you.

CHEERS!!