No-Doze: Legal Angel Dust

On Friday I had my first experience with a product called “No-Doze.” I had decided to drive from New York to Washington D.C. which would have been fine and good, except that I was unable to leave until midnight. So I stocked my car with Red Bull and No-Doze and hit the road.

The information on this over-the–counter pill reads, “One pill has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee.” “Ok.” I thought. “No problem here. I’ll kick a few of these suckers back, and just glide down to Washington.”

Now, I’m not really in the habit of drinking coffee. I don’t find it has all that pleasant a taste and it's never really helped keep me awake. Late nights at a diner I almost always ordered coffee and never had problems falling alseep. So I didn’t think I’d be over-medicating if I washed three pills down with a can of Red Bull.

Right about the time I became convinced the bats who had magically stowed away in my back seat last time I stopped to pee were trying to steal my blood, I decided I may have made an error. Yes, one No-Doze pill is equal to a cup of coffee—if each cup is laced with 8 pounds of pure angel dusk.

After about two hours, I became certain that my heart had stopped beating. Instead it was humming. I was over-come with the overwhelming urge to drink my weight in nectar.

Now, as anyone can tell you, when your nervous system is running faster than ferret on crystal meth, you get thirsty. Unfortunately, all I had in the car with me was Red Bull. It got to the point where I was no longer afraid of falling asleep on the road—I was concerned that I’d never be able to sleep again. Partly because I felt like pulling the car over to run laps through a field at 3:30 am, and partly because I’d convinced myself that if I for moment lapsed from my state of cat-like readiness, the bats would come back and steal my blood.

I’m sure the more rational among you are asking, “Why would bats want your blood?”

Honestly, I have no idea. Though in retrospect, at that point they could have boiled it down and kept the entire population of El Salvador high out of their minds for two weeks.

Just as I started to be able to see through time, I had a frightening thought: the stuff I was on was over-the-counter. What the fuck is the illegal stuff like? Even scarier, why would you need it? The question gave me something to ponder 3 hours after I had pulled over and completed counting the fibers in the carpet.

Around four in the morning I became aware that I was speaking. It happened this way:

For the last hour I had been tuned in to a really great talk radio station. The host had this great way of talking without stopping for breath and was making some really righteous points about life, the state of the highways, and what it’s like to drive alone in a car through the night. Things started getting creepy though, when I would think of a topic and then the radio would start talking about it ten seconds later. So started suspecting that the radio host was in some way part of the dark conspiracy to steal my blood. Naturally, I promptly leaned forward to turn off the radio, and realized that I had never turned it back on after I had stopped to challenge my pants to that lap-running competition.

There’s really no way to describe how creepy that is.

If anyone wants to recreate the experience, let me know: I still have an entire bottle left in my glove compartment for the ride home.