And for no good reason.
About a week ago I made a nightnight tea mix from different caffeinated loose-leaf teas I was experimenting with in pursuit of a perfect potion to give me that healthy bullshit that evidently exists in boiled-leaf-water in a version that I can use as a healthy night-cap. My recipe isn’t the problem, as it contains premium organic healthy ingredients without caffeine: Hibiscus petals, rooibus, honeybush, chamomile, oatstraw, lemonbalm, and bunch of honey. Mixed in just the right proportions, that I eventually arrived at, it’s a damn good brew that relaxes and frankly kindov fkk’s you up a little even in small doses. Along that path, however, I either did something wrong or mixed with a juice that went bad or something because I made a vat of one of the earlier versions of the recipe to have nightly for the next few days, and drinking it yesterday almost killed me.
I didn’t know it was poisonous at first of course, and at first blamed my throbbing feeling of sickness to having too strong a glass of this particular version of the recipe on an empty stomach, as the initial pains I was feeling was similar to the afternoon acid trip a cup of jasmine green tea sent me on 2 years ago when I accepted a cup from the asian lady at a foot spa I was getting a pedicure at. That time I knew I hadn’t eaten recently but wanted to accept the offer of the drink and also deny the reality I knew about myself regarding how desperately frail I am to caffeine, chemicals, and any ingestible substance stronger than a dose recommended for a 3 year old. I sipped the drink while she scrubbed my tootsies and almost immediately felt disoriented and under direct assault in the cranial area with some residual after effects rippling to my stomach. I barely made it home and had to lay down as the room spun around me for an extremely uncomfortable few hours of sickness feeling that was a lot what I would imagine having motion sickness while tripping on shrooms in a running clothes dryer would be like.
So I knew that when it comes to plant waters, I am extremely vulnerable (read: “A total p*ssy in this regard) and when I started to suffer similar head compression pains and sweats, I figured I just needed to eat enough fat to digest with the substance. When that didn’t work, I tried to flush it out with copious amounts of water – which are both plausible diagnoses and prescriptions that I don’t regret – but in this case, they were useless. My illness continued to intensify and totally kick my ass in ways I had never experienced before. It was legit one of the worst physical torments I’ve suffered. Top 15 for sure.
Here’s the thing though…
I’m drinking another glass of the same batch of tea as I type these very words.
And for no good reason. Not to prove a point. Not to try and be a hardass. Not to attempt to vaccinate myself against the side effects. Not to be funny. Not because I hate myself and want to die. -Just because I don’t want to waste it… I don’t want to have experienced this hell but I want more to not have to throw out this large metal thermos of tea I made.
That’s really the takeaway here is the utter pointlessness of what I’m doing and what it says about me as a flawed individual. Cuz I’m definitely not doing this as a joke – I’m doing it because I have to. Why exactly I have to isn’t all-the-way clear, but it’s mostly due to aversion of wasting my time and labor. I’m just too much of a narcissist to have spent time and resources on something only to both admit it as a failure and waste the product of that time spent. I’m willing to do one of those – because a man who has failed but refuses to admit it cannot grow and fools no one in the process, and holding on to something that hasn’t gone right benefits no one – but I can’t both. In this case, I’m admitting that I failed at making a pleasant nighttime drink I can enjoy over the course of a week and instead made a vicious poison that has really grotesque effects on the human body – but I ain’t dumping it out. So that means I can either poison others with this putrid bile or take the bullet myself and guzzle this ho.
So I’m guzzling. I’m guzzling for America. Because if you throw away tea that makes you sick, the terrorists win.
Actually – a large part of this is my disbelief that this is even a thing. No search results yield any tea giving you a nauseous gas bubble you have to burp out. None of the ingredients do it to me on their own, I don’t think. So what is going on? Is one of the teas contaminated with fecal matter or some other nasty bacteria that survives boiling water and is clearly identified by my intestinal police as a danger?
The tea is hibiscus petals, honey bush, rooibos, chamomile, nettle leaf, oat straw, rosemary, and ipecac. Just kidding about the last one. Even though no one knows what that is. It’s a funny reference, trust me.
You know what? I think I’m gonna dump this stuff after all…
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