Having had a bad cold and having blown through my remaining supply of Real (ie. pseudoephedrine-based) NyQuil, when I stopped by the drugstore to pick up another prescription tonight, I decided to pick up some more of the good stuff.

Two problems arose with this idea.

First, because pseudoephedrine is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, anything containing it is now banished behind the counter, where you must scan your driver’s license in order to purchase it, allowing Big Brother to track your purchases and ensure you’re just sick and not manufacturing meth.

Because of this ridiculousness, most pharmacies just sell the “reformulated” (ie. completely useless) version over the counter, and keep a limited stock of Real NyQuil.

Secondly, because the cold I have has been going around for some time, said limited stock was depleted to the point where the only bottle left of the good stuff was the Green flavor.

Previously, I’ve always purchased the “Cherry” flavor, which tastes nothing whatsoever like cherries, but is at least bearable in its own foul, familiar manner.

Tonight was the first time I tried the Green flavor, which is only labeled “Original.” Now I understand why Laz refers to it as the GREEEEEEEEEEEEN flavor.

Because it doesn’t taste like anything else you’ve ever tasted. You taste it and you think, “UCH! That tastes….GREEEEEEEEN!”

You can hear and read that description all you want, but you cannot understand it until you take a sweet sip of the disgusting weirdness. Now, I understand.

And now, I must head for bed before I pass out facefirst on the keyboard.

I listen to the BBC Global News Podcast in the car while I’m schlepping various things around Los Angeles, because it’s an easy way for me to maintain my goal of being reasonably informed about the rest of the world.

It’s normally fairly straightforward and British and reserved, but with one rather odd story to finish up the podcast.

This video was the subject of this morning’s kicker:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ipvdBnU8F8&rel=1]

I have to admit, when the BBC announcer, in his velvety, dignified British tones, said “An Australian politician is caught eating his own earwax” at the top of the podcast, I burst out laughing.

So I used to eat a lot of pizza, but as I’ve been trying to lose a large amount of weight, I’ve limited myself to one pizza per five pounds lost.

After a long break because I took so much time off the gym after my surgery, tonight was a pizza night. I was very excited about this, because I looooove pizza, and trying to be disciplined is…well, trying.

I called up Papa John’s to order for pickup as I left physical therapy, since they’re doing a $6.99 large one topping deal on pickup orders. Here is the relevant part of the conversation I had with the guy taking my order:

Him: And what topping would you like on your pizza?
Me: I’ll have half pineapple and half cheese.
Him: Just cheese?
Me: Yeah, plain cheese.

So imagine my surprise after plowing through half my breadsticks and opening the pizza to eat when I found nasty-ass anchovies on half my pizza, the half that was supposed to be plain cheese.

Now I don’t eat seafood at all (food poisoning when I was ten gave me what’s basically a conditioned taste aversion), but even if I were to make an exception, it would not be for oily, salty, gross, horrible anchovies.

I suppose it’s probably better for my continued weight loss that I ended up just trashing that half of the pizza. Still, it’s a bit frustrating to have to throw half a hot, fresh pizza in the dumpster.

I can’t tell what the hell is going on anymore with these ridiculous bug bites I’m getting.

I keep getting these horrid, hive-like things all over myself, and if I hadn’t had chicken pox when I was three, I’d be concerned I had it now.

Most of the time these itches flare up at the office, but the timing is weird enough that I can’t quite narrow down what’s happening and where, though I’m convinced it’s bugs of one sort or another.

The itching is making me absolutely insane, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I’m apparently getting bitten by every bug that could potentially bite humans.

All I know is that I’m increasingly covered in itchy red welts and/or scabs, and I really am reaching the end of my rope in terms of how on earth to continue coping with this without losing my mind.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bathe in calamine lotion.

I knew Chaplin wasn’t going to react well to me being back at work all day today, after being home with him for the last 2 months.

Puking all over my bed, though…that’s a new one.

Bad kitty. Good thing I was already planning on doing laundry tomorrow.

It is a moment many a pet owner has had, and it’s never good. You look at your pet, and you think you see something moving.

And you move some fur and you look closer and you realize: It’s a flea. Your pet has fleas. Oh god, there are FLEAS IN THIS HOUSE! AAAAAAAAAAAH!

That was me this morning right after I woke up. I leaned over to pet Chaplin, and when I ran my hand up the back of his head, out crawled a big, nasty flea.

I’d seen something on him yesterday but couldn’t conclusively identify it, and decided to ignore it out of wishful thinking. However, having looked at pictures online, I knew this second one would be the start of a very long day.

I have to say this: God bless L.A. and its mobile everything. By 9:30, the groomers had picked up Chaplin and whisked him away for a flea bath.

Certainly not the cheapest solution, but money well spent in my opinion, since it allowed me to keep my blood on the inside of my body. I don’t think that would have been possible had I tried to give him a bath.

But the real pain in the ass was the washing. When you find fleas, you have to wash…everything! Every blanket, every pillow, every single thing that might possibly harbor eggs that you can cram in a washing machine, you cram.

The problem with this is that the washer is downstairs. I’m still on the pegleg, so going down stairs is a painful hassle, involving taking stairs one at a time while clinging to the railing with whatever free hands I can muster.

I can’t carry anything heavy while trying this and it’s hard enough to carry anything unwieldy with two good legs, so it was damn near impossible with one. I did five loads of laundry and I thought my shin was going to disintigrate.

But I got it done, and I vacuumed the couch and the mattress and his carpeted scratching post to get any last little whatevers out of there. I also went online and ordered up some Frontline.

Chaplin came back from the groomers smelling like Mountain Fresh Tide, and substantially whiter in the white portions of his fur than he did when he left. I’m still not sure they didn’t actually bathe him in detergent instead of flea-bath.

So now I’m left, in a substantially cleaner yet still somehow dirtier-feeling house, paranoiacally looking at every wee movement I catch out of the corner of my eye, praying it’s not another flea.

Because I am not washing all this shit again, I can tell you that much.

I don’t know why, but for about the last 20 hours, I’ve been really nauseous. I have a Seinfeldian non-vomit streak going (last time was when I was 10 and had food poisoning from bad shrimp), but I don’t know how much longer it will last.

I have stayed home from work in an effort not to puke on my coworkers. I may get a chance to change things up and puke on the cat instead of having him puke on me.

Good times.