BLACKOUT

Last night, a sudden scary realization:

I could remember nothing of my arrival in Vienna.

I couldn't remember the plane landing, I couldn't remember saying goodbye to my Albanian seatmate, I couldn't remember grabbing my bag and exiting the plane, I couldn't remember walking to passport control, nor to the baggage carousel.

I couldn't remember fetching my bag, meeting B, our walk through to the parking lot, or the drive to her place. I couldn't remember walking upstairs.

I still can't remember any of this. B says I was lucid when I talked with her, but obviously somewhat whacked out. And when I got to her place, I flopped on the couch and slept for about four hours. I remember everything that happened after awakening.

Me brothers and sisters, this is a frightening thing. Blacking out, remembering nothing. What did I do? What happened during the missing time? Fortunately the only time I had to myself was the walk from the plane through the airport to the place where B met me...and because I've done this several times before, I more or less know what must have happened. But I don't really know.

Despite my jokes about alcohol and drugs, I don't drink that much and only take sleeping pills on transatlantic plane trips. Which happens seldom enough that I'm not used to the dosage, having used different pills each time---Ambien, Halcyon, whatever.

I do seem to recall warnings not to mix alcohol and sleeping pills, but I've ignored those warnings before with no problems.

But this time, I drank a bit more than usual (free hootch on Austrian Airlines) and took the pills way too late in the flight---with only about 4 or 5 hours left. Stupid.

It's kind of scary to simply lose track of a morning like that, not know exactly what you did and said and how you behaved while doing and saying it.

Hmm. Well. Ahem.

Live and learn.