After months of attempting to solve my strange sleeping patterns, I mentioned it to the doctor.

“Do you want me to write you a script for Ambien?  There is a generic.”, the doctor asked me.

I have no clue.  I’ve never taken a sleeping pill.  He’s the doctor.  This question blows my mind temporarily, but I accept the invite and we’re off.

Ambien is great.  I get sleepy, lay down, fall asleep, 7 hours later…. I wake up.  Perfect.

Prior to this miraculous $5/per month co-pay, I would lay down, roll over twelve times, get up, repeat for an hour or three.

There is side-effects to mention.  The “I get sleepy” part is all over the map.  Sometimes it equates to me stumbling around my apartment.  Other times its me sitting in the recliner giggling about something that happened in the third grade that I can’t quite communicate to anyone else.   The next day I try to piece together the final 30 minutes of the night before, its a fun game.

Last night, I decided to start the 30 minute countdown about 10pm.  Pop an ambien.  Check my email for the last time (its a compulsion).

Donnie ______ has added you as a friend on facebook.

I had watched a show on LSD earlier that evening and they had described the paranoia, anxiety and hallucinations that were experienced in bad trips.  I was trying to think of ways to verify that I was awake and aware of reality.  Holy shit.  I think I am insane, at this moment.

Here’s the thing.  Donnie and I grew up really good friends.  He chose one path, I took another.  I always hoped that we’d both grow up and we’d both make it out alright.

Three years ago, I mentioned his name to a mutual friend.  His response:

“You didn’t hear?  Donnie is dead.  He got decapitated in a car accident a year ago.”

Our lives had diverged, but all of my boyish hopes were crushed in my living room by a slightly tactless explanation of how the life of a friend, ended.  Over the past couple years, I searched to validate that rumor, but came up empty.

This morning, I wake up 7 hours later, as scripted by the generic ambien.  I walked to the kitchen and poured a bowl of cereal.  Piecing together the final 30 minutes of the previous night…

Either. there is LSD in generic ambien or a dead guy added me as a friend on Facebook.