Swallowing Pills and Swallowing Bees; I had a Moonface, Woe is Me

I was talking to the 'rents last night and my mom was explaining that her eye doctor discovered that she has a twisted optic nerve. My brother also has a twisted optic nerve, and so does my cousin. So my mom wants me to get my optic nerve checked out. I told her not to worry; I am the anomaly in the fam. In a fambly full of right-handers who wear glasses (or contacts), I am a lefty who doesn't wear glasses (or contacts).

Even more importantly, I detest getting drops put into my eyes. So does my dad. I claim that if my father doesn't have to get drops put into his eyes, than I ought to be exempt from the same torture.

Somehow this conversation turned to other forms of childhood torture-- I asked my parents if they remembered the night they taught me how to swallow pills. I was completely incapable of swallowing pills because I was terrified that the pill would stick in my throat and I wouldn't be able to breathe and I'd die. So I always had to get liquid antibiotics and chew a whole bottle of baby aspirin when I was sick. So mom and dad decided it was getting ridiculous and I had to learn how to swallow. I had strept for the 9th time that year and I had capsules and I was taking the medicine by breaking the capsules into ice cream and eating the medicine like that. And I guess the 'rents thought enough was enough. And it was a school night, and I spent 4 hours in front of the kitchen sink, throwing my head back and trying to figure out just how the fuck one could open one's airways and swallow that goddamn ginourmous pill.

When they weren't looking, I'd try to chew the pill (GROSS!) but I would end up grimacing and they'd catch me. So we went through 1/2 the bottle of pills and finally I figured out how to do it. But, by ingesting (because I chewed most of 'em) 1/2 a bottle of amoxycillin, I had an allergic reaction. The next day, my face swelled up and I had a round face, like Charlie Brown or Cantor Butensky's kid. We sometimes sat in the pew behind the Cantor's wife and her damn roundheaded kid would look at us and we would whisper, "ROUNDHEAD! ROUNDHEAD!" I guess god didn't like us saying nasty shit about the Cantor's kid, because now I had a roundhead, too. And my hands were swollen. And my lips were so swollen I could barely deliver my current event report -- because the swallowing-instruction was on Thursday night, so I was swollen on Friday, and Fridays were current event days in sixth grade.

And then that weekend was my dad's company picnic at a park somewhere in NJ, and I didn't want to go because I had a swollen moonface. But I had to go. And it was far away. And then the boss's daughter drank a can of coke and there was a bee in the coke and it stung her tongue. And then I drank a can of diet coke and there was a bee in MY DIET COKE, TOO and it stung my tongue, so we had to run to the Puerto Rican man selling Italian ices and get ices to ease the swelling on our respective tongues. And then we left the picnic and went to a mall, and my dad bought me a maroon Blossom-esque hat to wear for the High Holidays.

Needless to say, my parents didn't remember anything -- nothing of the pill-swallowing adventure, and nothing of the traumatic bee-swallowing debacle.

Some kids were dropped as a child; at least I have more interesting explanations for how I turned out to be so fucking awesome.