Orange Flavored Aspirin

I’m going to jump ahead slightly in time and tell ‘the story‘ of my early years. You know – the one that makes people say “Well, that explains a lot!”
In the interest of full disclosure I must say that although most of this narrative is drawn from my own memories there are some details I’ve filled in from my mother’s (repeated) retelling.

Back in the 50s there was a product called “St. Joseph’s Orange Flavored Children’s Aspirin” and I must say they were quite tasty. Because of the obvious hazard they posed to children the geniuses at St. Josephs developed a new-fangled pry-off ‘safety’ cap to replace the standard screw cap. Now, a slower child might have tried in vain to use his fingers to gain access to those orange flavored yummies, but I quickly discovered that you could pop that ‘safety’ cap off with your teeth in no time at all – it was actually more ‘child accessible’ than the screw cap. (I’ve always wondered how the testing for that cap went – I can almost envision them yelling at the kids: “No! No! Don’t put it in your mouth! Try using your fingers! There you go! …”)

So one morning (when I was 3 years old) my mom was busy getting my sister ready for school and I climbed up onto the kitchen counter, grabbed a new bottle of those orange goodies off the top shelf and downed the whole batch.
I probably owe my life to the fact that I wasn’t yet sophisticated enough to conceal the evidence and left the empty bottle on the counter. When my mom accused me of throwing them away I reportedly responded with “I didn’t! I was a good boy! I ate them all up!”
My mom immediately called the doctor (this was way before 911) and as he was telling her not to let me drink anything under any circumstances she turned around to see me chugging the glass of milk she had left on the table for my sister. That’s when she started freaking out (and my ‘memory device’ started recording).
Now, my mom freaking out was not out of the ordinary, but this was a whole new level of freaking out. She grabbed me, wrapped me up in a blanket and ran out the back door where Mr. Kloninger was working in his garden next door. She started screaming at him incoherently, which initially evoked the classic ‘deer in the headlights’ response, but he finally caught the word ‘hospital’ and we jumped in his car and headed off.
My mom calmed down a lot in the car but I still remember the ride because I’d never been in that car before (lots of interesting stuff to look at) and I almost never got to ride in the front seat (not to mention being wrapped in a blanket in my mother’s arms).
The next thing I remember is being put on a metal table in a room with green tile walls and lots of bright lights. There was a really nice nurse smiling and talking sweetly to me and I didn’t realize until it was too late that she was just distracting me while she wrapped me tightly in a sheet – I could barely move a muscle. Boy, was I mad! That was the first time in my life I was cruelly betrayed by a sweet talking woman…
What happened next was far worse. A doctor wearing a mask and thick black rimmed glasses appeared above me and started shoving a rubber tube through my nose – I could feel it going down my throat. Definitely the most unpleasant experience of my young life! If I hadn’t been wrapped up so tight I would have totally gone medieval on him. And that’s when my memory device stopped recording

Next thing I remember I was back at home – I was apparently released a few hours after my stomach was pumped and my parents were instructed to keep me awake for 24 hours as a precaution. BTW – I would advise against overdosing on aspirin just for the hallucinations – they aren’t that great. The room was filled with brightly colored fish and I was unable to catch any of them despite my best efforts. And then the small black Scottish Terrier appeared. My mom humored me and put down food for it, but my aunt Annette (who was was visiting at the time) kicked the poor little thing multiple times to prove to me that it didn’t exist. I was really mad at her for that. I mean, I sort of suspected that it wasn’t real because dogs usually aren’t translucent (notwithstanding the picture below – one of the funnier things I’ve seen – thank you Cate!) – but it was still not very nice of Annette to kick it …

And, that’s the story of the orange flavored aspirin – the first of many that make me wonder how I survived my childhood…