Side Effects

by Nic Olson

It should not be used without serious caution and consideration, as some of the side effects can not only be serious, but affect you for the rest of your life.

I found this quote in my draft section of my blog. Every now and then, like this month, I somehow write a blog every other day, and they are almost acceptable as decent. The times like this, I save bits and pieces in different drafts, so I can think about them, elaborate on them, and avoid forgetting all the potential one-liners from days before. So today I found this quote in my drafts. And it is dated from today. And I don’t have the slightest clue where it came from. It may have come from my brain or some other source, or what it even has to do with. I don’t remember if I had a clever idea to go along with this obscure quote about spiritual condoms or something.

I had a dream last night that I looked out my window and saw huge fighter jets flying from the horizon towards the apartment, and once they got close I saw them release warheads of some sort. No one else was watching, so I knocked everyone to the ground behind the wall and covered our heads while our building was torn to shreds. We survived. The next thing I remember was being one of the few people alive in a war dead world.

Lately I have been waking up at 6:30am to read, write and have a bowl of Cream of Wheat, so I don’t feel so tired all day from oversleeping. Also to be so much of a waste of life. It is possible in my dazed, wheat-cream preparation that I typed some random words from my war dream the night before.

I quickly became worried that I stole this sentence from another writer and I wouldn’t be able to properly credit them for their disclaimer genius. And that was basically the case. I just googled the entire phrase, highly doubtful that it would yield any true success, but the quote in its entirety was found. The quote is from this. I now recall skimming this brilliantly written sentence from a pop-up, copying and pasting it into my drafts and running off to school.

I never used the stuff, but my brothers did. I just remember swollen, dry, red faces that were not naturally hormonal. I feel that mostly anything a pregnant woman shouldn’t ingest, is something that even the impregnable should likely avoid as much as possible, whether it be caffeine, smokes, those Bolthouse Fruit Drinks, or microwaved products. People used to tell me in my hayday of acne that I should go to the doctor to seek a product for it, and although I wasn’t offended and could have been, I usually just quietly mocked myself about how ugly I was, and rejected their idea. Nowadays there are commercials that advertise help for old users of Accutane, that they could contact a specific lawyer to try and collect huge dollars from Accutane for making them suicidal. I regret not trying it now. Not for the clear skin, but for the settlement cheque.

I can’t even tell if this ‘warning’ is for positive life outcomes, like ‘It will drastically improve your life with a less greasy face!’ or for the inevitable deadly ‘depression’ it causes. With a disclaimer like that, you know it is definitely a product worth taking. I think this quote should be the new tagline for my blog. Seems to explain it all perfectly. Besides ‘Balls of Rice’, there are few products in the world that could have such positive, lifelong side effects. Commit your life to ‘Balls of Rice’ and you it will seriously affect you for the rest of your life. It is in  your best interests.

Just don’t commit suicide because of it.