Hi everyone,
First, I’d just like to say I’m sorry. I really am. I should have known when I signed up to be a subject in this drug trial that I’d react badly. I’ve done this kind of thing before and it’s why I’m no longer allowed in any CVS Minute Clinics and was labeled a “hostile audience member” on The Dr. Oz Show. I should have written about my over-reactive tendencies on my application, but I assumed I had grown out of them and didn’t really want to type everything out. I’m sorry that you had to spend 24 hours in a hospital observation ward with me and that my behavior has conditioned several of you to become so frightened of medicine that you now only treat your ailments with acupuncture and therapeutic screaming.
Let me be clear: I was on the placebo. But I really thought I wasn’t, and that’s why things got weird. I’m a very jumpy and nervous person whose entire life feels like those few tense seconds before a glaucoma test when you’re waiting to get air blasted in your eyes. And drugs (even fake drugs) tend to exaggerate that feeling and make me a little crazy. So now, let the apologies begin.
Elisa, I want to apologize for making you use a Sharpie to connect the dots with all my moles. I was certain that the drug had somehow caused them to shift. I’m sorry that after we measured out the lengths of all the lines, I realized that I had no standard to compare them to, as I had never measured the distance between them before. At least you refused to map out yours. The Sharpie really is not coming off. Not even with steel wool.
Arielle, I’m sorry I reported you as a hallucination to the nurse four times. You are very pale and eerie-looking, and I remember thinking that you couldn’t possibly be a real person. I’m sorry that when the nurse made me go shake your hand to prove you were real I looked you straight in the eye and said, “Bullshit.” I now understand that you are entirely corporeal, although it wouldn’t hurt you to go tanning. I could see your veins through your skin like you were a translucent fish. It was quite off-putting, as I’m sure you’ve been told before.
Hannah, I should apologize for asking you to donate your blood to me. I thought that I could feel mine thinning and that I was in need of a transfusion. I’m sorry I kept trying to cut you with that butter knife from the cafeteria and later tried to give you paper cuts with my medical history form after the nurse confiscated the knife. I now know that it would have been silly to harvest your blood, as we don’t even know if we are the same type.
I want to apologize to everyone whom I convinced the end was nigh. Thank you for joining me in that circle and sharing your secrets and regrets before we embarked into the great beyond. The great beyond, of course, was not actually death, but rather the hospital’s maternity ward, which we stumbled into after running down the halls barefoot to “feel the earth beneath our feet once more.” I’m also sorry for repeatedly pointing at the newborns in their cribs and shouting that they were us being reborn into a new dimension.
I’m especially sorry to the couple in that ward whom I convinced to name their child “L’thangraha” after telling them it was the name for the Persian goddess of virtue. I was on a bit of a high from my brief foray into cult leader status and conjured that name from nowhere. I’m sure the process to get it changed isn’t that lengthy, although you may need to get something notarized to do it. I have no idea.
Finally, Sarah, I’m so sorry that I asked you nine times to check my pulse and then punched you in the mouth when you did. I was certain that my pulse wasn’t just increasing, but beginning to beat to the rhythm of The Knack’s “My Sharona.” Then when you obliged and reached for my wrist, my community center self-defense class training kicked in and there wasn’t much I could do to stop it. You may now be missing a tooth, but this gives you an excuse to see an orthodontist, where you could perhaps inquire about getting Invisalign. I noticed as I aimed for your mouth that you have a bit of an overbite.
The most embarrassing detail of all this is probably that the drug was a type of ibuprofen. I assumed it was something much harder, like cocaine. I’m aware that there is no such thing as medical cocaine, but I thought that’s because it was still in clinical trials. To those of you who were not on the placebo, be thankful that you were on some strong ibuprofen. I’ve been told from the other placebo group members that they would have given anything for ibuprofen during our time together.
Thanks for your time and my most sincere apologies.